Israel kills 5 journalists in airstrike on news van near central Gaza hospital

In yet another attack on press crews in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike targeted a group of journalists on Wednesday night outside the Awda Hospital in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp.

The assault killed five Al-Quds Today journalists, including Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, Ayman al-Jady, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Ali, Mohamed al-Ladaa, and Fady Hassouna.

Journalist Ahmed al-Ras, who was at a journalists’ tent near the hospital at the time of the airstrike, told Mada Masr that Israeli forces targeted the Al-Quds Today broadcast vehicle. 

Omar al-Jady, brother to Ayman al-Jady, was nearby at the time of the strike and filmed the burning vehicle. The footage, showing flames leaping high from the targeted vehicle, was widely shared on social media in the early hours of Thursday.

“I stood and started filming, I didn’t know what else to do. The vehicle was set on fire immediately. The strike was powerful, I didn’t know what to do or say,” he told Mada Masr on Thursday.

Ras also noted that the explosion was so forceful that it set the entire vehicle on fire, and that it took civil defense teams a long time to extinguish the fire and retrieve the journalists’ charred bodies.

Jady said that his brother’s wife had been admitted to the Awda Hospital to deliver their baby hours before the airstrike. He described his brother’s laughter and happiness in his final moments. 

“He got married during the war, and was martyred during the war. He wanted to see his newborn baby,” he said.

Journalist Hany Abu Rizq described the attack as a deliberate crime aimed at silencing the truth. The live truck was clearly marked as a press vehicle and the journalists were wearing press vests at the time of the attack, Abu Rizq told Mada Masr. Both Abu Rizq and Ras were personally acquainted with the slain journalists.

According to Abu Rizq, the five journalists had been covering events and documenting the crimes committed by Israeli forces since the onset of the aggression on Gaza. This, he said, is why they were targeted in this manner.

Gaza Government Media Office Director General Ismail al-Thawabta echoed Abu Rizq’s condemnation, also noting that the five reporters were wearing distinct press badges, making their killing a “literal assassination of the truth.” 

Thawabta told Mada Masr that this latest attack brings the death toll among journalists in Gaza to 201. 

He condemned the targeting of journalists and called on press organizations worldwide to take action to stop what he described as daily massacres against Palestinian journalists.