At least 15 people, including four journalists, were killed on Monday after Israeli airstrikes hit al-Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, Palestinian health officials confirmed.
According to The Guardian, those killed include Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters cameraman; Mariam Abu Dagga, a freelance reporter with the Associated Press; Mohammed Salam of Al Jazeera; and Moaz Abu Taha, who worked with NBC. Another Reuters journalist, photographer Hatem Khaled, was seriously injured.
Footage broadcast by al-Ghad TV showed civil defence workers and journalists in bright orange vests rushing to recover al-Masri’s body when they themselves came under fire. In their final moments, the rescuers raised their hands for protection before being struck.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 192 Palestinian journalists have been killed since October 7, 2023 — more than the global total of the previous three years combined.
The CPJ accused Israel of carrying out a “deliberate and systematic attempt to silence reporting from Gaza.”
Figures compiled by the CPJ showed that in 2024 alone, nearly one-third of all journalists killed globally died in Gaza.
The number of journalists killed there has now exceeded the combined totals from both World Wars, the Vietnam War, the Yugoslav conflicts, and the U.S. war in Afghanistan, according to Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera reports that October 2023 was the deadliest month, with 44 journalists killed, around 16% of the total.
The killings continued in the following months: 32 in November, 37 in December, and 17 in January 2024.
Of those killed, 269 were Palestinian, three were Lebanese, and two were Israelis.
Israel continued to bar foreign journalists from entering Gaza, a move that has drawn strong protests from major international newsrooms.
On July 24, CPJ called for the protection of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif after the Israeli military accused him of links to militants.
Unfortunately, eighteen days later, Al-Sharif and three of his colleagues were killed in what CPJ described as an assassination.
To date, Israel has not been held accountable for the deaths of journalists in Gaza.
“Killing witnesses to the story means the story is instead told by those doing the shooting,” a CPJ statement warned.
Neither the Israeli prime minister’s office nor the military issued an immediate response to the latest killings.
Meanwhile, the United Nations had also officially declared famine in Gaza for the first time, with more than half a million people trapped in conditions of widespread starvation, destitution, and preventable deaths.
The warning came in a statement issued last Friday from the World Food Programme (WFP), citing the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis.
According to the report, famine conditions in Gaza City are projected to spread in the coming weeks to Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis governorates.
By the end of September, over 640,000 people will face catastrophic food insecurity — the highest level, IPC Phase 5. Another 1.14 million people are classified in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), while 396,000 are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3).
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UNICEF, WFP, and the World Health Organization (WHO) jointly raised the alarm, stressing that famine must be stopped at all costs.
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