Two Al Jazeera journalists were killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera channel reported on Wednesday, as the war between Israel and Hamas continues in the Palestinian territory.
“Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Refi have been killed in an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip,” the network reported, adding that the attack “targeted a car near the Aidiya area, west of Gaza City.”
Since the war in Gaza began on 7 October, Al Jazeera has broadcast continuous reporting on the ground on the impact of Israel’s campaign.
The network’s Gaza office has already been bombed during the conflict and two other reporters have been killed.
In a statement, Hamas condemned the killings, calling them a “heinous crime” and said they were aimed at “terrorizing and silencing Palestinian journalists” because they were reporting on “the genocide that has been going on against our people in the Gaza Strip for nearly ten months.”
Al Jazeera has been a focus of criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government for months.
Last month, an Israeli court confirmed it had extended a ban on the network, which broadcasts in Arabic and English, that was first imposed on Al Jazeera in early May.
In January, Israel said an Al Jazeera journalist and a freelancer killed in an air strike in Gaza were “terrorists”.
The following month, it accused another journalist from the channel, who was wounded in another attack, of being a Hamas “deputy company commander”.
Al Jazeera has strongly denied Israel’s allegations and accused it of systematically targeting Al Jazeera staff in the Gaza Strip.
Its Gaza-based bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh, was wounded in an Israeli attack in December that killed the network’s cameraman.
His wife, two of their children and a grandson were killed in a bombing of the Nusserat refugee camp in central Gaza in October.
His eldest son, an Al Jazeera staff journalist, was killed in an attack targeting a car in Rafah in January.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
