Targeting Journalists' Tent in Gaza: 7 Martyrs Including Al Jazeera Reporters

In a new crime that shakes the media scene, an Israeli airstrike directly targeted a tent for journalists in front of the main gate of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in the center of Gaza City, resulting in the martyrdom of at least 7 people, including five journalists, in one of the deadliest attacks against media personnel since the outbreak of the war on the sector.

The director of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex confirmed the martyrdom of Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammad Qareqea, reporters for Al Jazeera in Gaza, along with the photojournalists Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammad Nofal, as a result of the shelling that hit their tent while they were covering the events around the hospital.

The Israeli army admitted in an official statement that it "directly targeted" a group of journalists in Gaza, claiming that one of them was leading "a cell affiliated with Hamas."

The army did not provide public evidence for this claim, which sparked a wave of anger and sharp criticism from human rights and media organizations.

In the same context, the civil defense in Gaza announced the death of at least 27 people yesterday, Sunday, in scattered Israeli attacks across the sector, including 11 civilians who were killed while waiting for food aid in front of distribution centers run by the "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation."

According to the organization "Reporters Without Borders," the number of journalists killed since the outbreak of the war in October 2023 has risen to about 200 journalists, including 45 who were killed while performing their journalistic duties.

The organization accuses Israel of imposing a "comprehensive media siege" on the Gaza Strip, which includes preventing foreign journalists from entering and imposing strict censorship on media coverage.

Since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, Israeli authorities have not allowed any international media organization to enter Gaza freely, except for a limited number of media outlets that accompanied the Israeli army on field tours under direct military supervision and strict content censorship.

Global media outlets primarily rely on local journalists in Gaza, who are now paying the highest price to cover one of the longest and fiercest wars in the history of the sector.

According to the health ministry run by Hamas in the sector, the number of war victims in Gaza since October 2023 has reached about 61,430 dead, the majority of whom are civilians, figures that the United Nations considers reliable despite the ban on independent international investigation committees from entering.

The war erupted following an unprecedented attack carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people inside Israel, most of them civilians, according to statistics from the "France Press" agency based on official Israeli data.