Al Jazeera journalists Hamza Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya had been killed in a focused strike on their automobile in Khan Younis.
The Israeli navy has seemingly walked again its justification for focusing on a automobile in Gaza final week, killing two Al Jazeera journalists, United States broadcaster NBC reported.
Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, was killed in an Israeli missile strike on Sunday in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Journalist Mustafa Thuraya was additionally killed within the assault, whereas a 3rd passenger, journalist Hazem Rajab, was critically injured.
On the time of the assault, the Israeli military mentioned it was focusing on a “terrorist” within the automobile.
It confirmed in an announcement {that a} navy plane “identified and struck a terrorist who operated an aircraft that posed a threat to (Israeli) troops,” including that “we are aware of the reports that during the strike, two other suspects who were in the same vehicle as the terrorist were also hit”.
Nonetheless, when requested if Israel had any proof {that a} so-called terrorist was current within the automobile, military spokesperson Daniel Hagari described the incident to NBC as “unfortunate”, and mentioned that an investigation was persevering with to find out what occurred.
“Every journalist who dies, it’s unfortunate,” Hagari informed NBC. “We understand they were putting a drone, using a drone. And using a drone in a war zone, it’s a problem. It looks like the terrorists,” including that Hamas makes use of drones to gather intel on Israeli forces.
“We will investigate this incident and we will provide the data,” Hagari mentioned.
Calling for an unbiased investigation into the strike, the Committee to Shield Journalists (CPJ) mentioned: “Israel first said it lethally targeted a car carrying journalists in Gaza because there was a terrorist in the car. Now it says that the use by a journalist of a drone made it ‘look like’ they were terrorists.”
CPJ’s Center East and North Africa Programme Coordinator Sherif Mansour mentioned: “Targeting of civilians is illegal. Journalists use equipment like cameras and drones for their work. It does not make them terrorists and should certainly not make them targets.”
Al Jazeera correspondents mentioned that the automobile with the journalists was hit as they had been making an attempt to interview civilians displaced by earlier bombings.
The Al Jazeera Media Community strongly condemned the assault saying the “assassinations” of Dahdouh and Thuraya reaffirmed the necessity “to take immediate necessary legal measures against the (Israeli) occupation forces to ensure that there is no impunity”.
In October, Dahdouh’s mom, brother, sister and nephew had been killed in an Israeli air raid. His father Wael was injured in a drone assault final month, which killed Al Jazeera journalist and cameraman Samer Abudaqa.
Greater than 100 journalists have been killed in Gaza because the present battle broke out on October 7. Extra journalists have been killed in three months of Israel’s battle on Gaza than in all of World Conflict II or the Vietnam Conflict.
CPJ information reveals that extra journalists had been killed within the first 10 weeks of the battle than have ever been killed in a single nation over a whole yr.
