Israel Murder 2 Al-Jazeera journalists
Al-Jazeera has condemned Wednesday’s “cold-blooded assassination” of two of its journalists by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The Syndicate reports that this brings the total number of journalists and media workers killed by Israeli forces in Gaza to 113 as at July 31, 2024.
So far, more than 39,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israel since it launched attack on Palestinian territory 10 months ago.
The Qatar-based news outlet in a statement on Wednesday said that its Arabic channel correspondent Ismail Al Ghoul and cameraman Rami Al Rifi were “targeted by Israeli occupation forces” while covering situation in Gaza’s Al-Shati refugee camp.
“This latest attack on Al Jazeera journalists is part of a systematic targeting campaign against the network’s journalists and their families since October 2023,” Al Jazeera added.
Since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, Al Jazeera has aired continuous on-the-ground reporting on the effects of Israel’s campaign.
The network’s office in Gaza has already been bombed in the conflict and two other correspondents killed.
Al Jazeera said Ghoul and Rifi’s killings showed “the urgent need for immediate legal action against the occupation forces”.
The channel said it would “pursue all legal actions to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes and stands in unwavering solidarity with all journalists in Gaza”.
In a statement, Hamas condemned the killings as a “heinous crime” aimed at “terrorising and silencing” Palestinian journalists reporting “the ongoing genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip for nearly ten months”.
Al-Jazeera has been the focus of months of criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, and had banned the network in its efforts to prevent the station from covering the atrocities of Israeli forces in Gaza.
In January, Israel killed an Al Jazeera staff journalist and a freelancer, and wounded another journalist with the channel in a separate strike.
Its bureau chief in Gaza, Wael al-Dahdouh, was wounded in an Israeli strike in December 2023 that killed the network’s cameraman.
His wife, two of their children and a grandson were killed in the October bombardment of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, while his eldest son, who was Al Jazeera staff journalist, was killed in January when a strike targeted his car in Rafah.
