Several journalists targeted by Israeli military in operation on Nuseirat, central Gaza

The Israeli military fired at several journalists, including one of Mada Masr’s Gaza correspondents, on Friday morning, while they were covering the Occupation’s ongoing campaign in the Nuseirat camp. 

Journalist Sami Mohamed Shehada, who was filming for the Turkish outlet TRT Arabi at the time, lost his leg in the attack. He was transported to a hospital in Deir al-Balah where his leg was further amputated, according to a source who was in the hospital with him.  

Thaer Abu Aoun, Mada Masr’s correspondent in Gaza, who was with Shehada and at least four other reporters at the time of the attack, said that the targeted journalists were wearing press vests.

“I couldn’t see anything. We thought it was an airstrike, but they told us afterward that it was a tank,” he said. 

“Anyone could have been in Sami’s place, or worse, we could all have been killed,” he continued. “The conditions are truly beyond what we can bear — but we continue in our journalistic duty.”

The journalists were targeted “intentionally and deliberately,” said the Gaza Government Media Office, noting that the incident is the latest in a string of Israeli attacks on press workers, with 140 Palestinian journalists having been killed since the outset of the current aggression more than six months ago. 

After Israel briefly withdrew from central Gaza earlier this week, the Occupation military’s spokesperson announced on Thursday the commencement of a new campaign in the Nuseirat camp that would include airstrikes and artillery fire from the coastline, as well as the deployment of ground forces.

In a statement on Thursday, the Occupation said it had begun “a precise, intelligence-based operation to strike terrorist infrastructure and eliminate operatives in central Gaza” overnight.

“An IDF fighter jet struck an armed terrorist exiting a tunnel shaft while our troops located a number of launchers in the area,” the statement read. “The Israeli Navy assisted the forces, conducting a number of targeted strikes along central Gaza’s coastline.”

Two days into the operation, the Occupation military has targeted mosques and schools, as well as the journalists on Friday. Heavy airstrikes have also targeted residential areas, while resistance fighters were reportedly clashing with Israeli military troops to the north of the camp. 

A muazzin was killed by the Israeli military on Thursday as it targeted the Muadh bin Jabal and Thu al-Nurein mosques in Nuseirat, the Government Media Office said in a statement. Three displaced people were also killed by the Israeli military as it shelled an UNRWA primary school for boys, as well as the Malaysian School in Nuseirat, the media office added. 

Over 33,000 people have been killed in the six-month-long aggression on the strip, and another 76,214 have been injured, the Gaza Health Ministry reported on Friday.