Gaza journalist killed alongside 42 relatives, news agency says

A Palestinian reporter has been killed alongside 42 family members, his news agency says, as a watchdog said the past month had been the most deadly for journalists since its records began.

The Wafa news agency said Mohammad Abu Hasira was killed on Tuesday in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City.

At least 37 journalists had been killed since the war began, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said.

These include 32 Palestinians, 4 Israelis and 1 Lebanese.

The CPJ said it was unclear whether all had been covering the conflict at the time of their deaths but said it was including them in its count while it investigated the circumstances.

The group began documenting journalist fatalities in 1992.

Last month Israel told international news organisations Reuters and AFP that it could not guarantee the safety of their journalists operating in the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was targeting Hamas throughout Gaza and accused the group of placing military operations “in the vicinity of journalists and civilians”.

Israeli air strikes could additionally damage nearby buildings, the IDF said.

On Saturday AFP called on Israel to investigate an air strike that severely damaged its office located on the top floors of an 11-storey building.

“A strike on the offices of an international news agency sends a deeply troubling message to all the journalists working in such difficult conditions in Gaza,” said AFP boss Fabrice Fries.

Last week, Mohammad Abu Hatab, a correspondent for the Palestine TV news channel was killed in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in an Israeli airstrike, along with 11 members of his family.

His colleague Salman Al-Bashir broke down in tears on air when learning of his death, removing his vest and helmet saying that the even the protective gear was not keeping journalists alive.

Two Israeli photographers, Roee Idan and Yaniv Zohar, and members of their families were killed when Hamas attacked kibbutzes Kfar Aza and Nahal Oz on 7 October.

Two Israeli reporters, Shai Regev and Ayelet Arnin, were killed during the Hamas attack on the Supernova music festival onthe same day, Israeli media reported.

In Lebanon, prominent Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed when covering Israeli rockets fired over the Israel-Lebanon border on 13 October. He was part of a group of journalists near the border town of Alma al-Shaab in southern Lebanon when he was hit by a rocket. Six other journalists were also injured in the strike.

Shortly before Abdallah was killed, he posted on Instagram a picture of himself wearing a helmet and a flak jacket with the word “press” written on it.

Six other journalists, including from Reuters, Al Jazeera and Agency France-Presse, were wounded. One of them, Reuters video journalist Maher Nazeh, said the teams “were filming missile fire coming from the direction of Israel when one struck Abdallah as he was sitting on a low stone wall near the rest of the group”, according to a report published by the news agency.

IDF spokesman Richard Hecht said the army was “deeply regretful for the incident” and was “actively investigating it” without saying that Israeli military was behind it.

More than 10,300 people have been killed during Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel’s retaliatory strikes began in response to Hamas’ brutal 7 October attack, when the group killed 1,400 people and took more than 230 hostages.