“These are not isolated incidents, but systematic attacks by Israel on the media. This disturbing and deliberate pattern must end,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “The killing of journalists in a hospital courtyard on the holy day of Yawm Al-Arafah — preceding Eid al-Adha — underscores the relentless dangers facing the media in Gaza.”

The drone strike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital courtyard killed correspondent Suleiman Hajjaj and camera operator Ismail Baddah of Palestine Today TV, a channel affiliated with the Islamic Jihad militant group, and Samir al-Rifai, an administrator for the local, privately owned Shams News Agency.

The Israel Defense Forces said on Telegram that they had “precisely struck an Islamic Jihad terrorist who was operating in a command and control center in the yard of the Al-Ahli Hospital.”

Palestine Today TV described the killings as a “double war crime” for “direct targeting” its journalists and a hospital, both protected under international law.

Palestine Today TV correspondent Emad Daloul was also injured, as well as three journalists with Qatari-funded Al-Araby TV: reporter Islam Badr and camera operators Imam Badr and Ahmed Qulaja.

“The strike happened at around 10:20 a.m. with a single missile fired by an Israeli drone directly at a group of journalists who were sitting in the courtyard, working on their laptops,” Islam Badr, who started filming minutes after his right leg was hit, told CPJ.

“Qulaja was critically injured by shrapnel,” added Islam Badr, brother to Imam Badr.

Al-Mayadeen TV journalist Akram Daloul, a relative of injured Emad Daloul, told CPJ that the correspondent’s condition was serious because he had previously undergone a kidney transplant.

CPJ emailed the Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk to ask if the military was aware of the presence of journalists in the area and if they were deliberately targeted but did not immediately receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The airstrike on the tent housing journalists in the grounds of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis killed Hilmi al-Faqaawi, a social media manager for pro-Palestinian Islamic Jihad broadcaster Palestine Today TV, and injured the following journalists:

• Ahmed Mansour, Palestine Today news agency editor
• Ahmed Al-Agha, BBC Arabic contributor
• Mohammed Fayeq, freelance photojournalist and drone operator
• Abdullah Al-Attar, freelance photographer for Anadolu Agency
• Ihab Al-Bardini, camera operator contributing to U.S. channel ABC
• Mahmoud Awad, Al Jazeera camera operator
• Majed Qudaih, Radio Algerie correspondent
• Ali Eslayeh, photographer for West Bank-based site Alam24

The Israel Defense Forces said the strike targeted Hassan Eslayeh, a freelance photographer who was with Hamas on October 7, 2023. The IDF said Eslayeh, who was injured on April 7, 2025, was a “terrorist” who “participated in the bloody massacre.”

In 2023, the pro-Israeli watchdog HonestReporting published a photo of Eslayeh being kissed by then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, after which CNN, the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies cut ties with the journalist.

“This is not the first time Israel has targeted a tent sheltering journalists in Gaza. The international community’s failure to act has allowed these attacks on the press to continue with impunity, undermining efforts to hold perpetrators accountable,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa  Director Sara Qudah. “CPJ calls on authorities to allow the injured, some of whom have sustained severe burns, to be evacuated immediately for treatment and to stop attacking Gaza’s already devastated press corps.”

Footage verified by Reuters news agency showed people trying to douse flames in the tent while other images of someone trying to rescue a journalist in flames were widely shared online.

CPJ’s email to the IDF’s North America Media Desk to request comment did not receive an immediate response.

More than 170 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

On March 24, deadly Israeli strikes hit the car of Qatari-based Al Jazeera Mubasher’s Shabat near northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia, and the home in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis of Mansour, who worked for the pro-Islamic Jihad, Beirut-based Palestine Today TV.

“CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said CPJ’s Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour. Journalists are civilians and it is illegal to attack them in a war zone.”

On March 18, Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza, ending a ceasefire that began on January 19.

On October 23, the IDF accused Shabat and five other Palestinian journalists working with Al Jazeera in Gaza of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. CPJ has called on Israel to stop making unsubstantiated allegations to justify its killing and mistreatment of members of the press.

Shabat told CPJ in October that he was not a member of Hamas. “We convey the truth on Al Jazeera Mubasher, and we move within the areas classified by Israel as safe,” Shabat said. “We are citizens, and we convey their voices. Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth.”

More than 170 journalists and media workers have been killed since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.