Israeli attack kills five Palestinian journalists outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip overnight, the Health Ministry said early Thursday morning. The Israeli military said the five were militants posing as journalists.
The attack hit a car in front of the Al-Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central part of the territory. The journalists worked for local media outlet Al-Quds Today, a television channel affiliated with the Islamic Jihad militant group.
Islamic Jihad is a smaller and more extreme ally of Hamas, and participated in its October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which ignited the conflict. The Israeli military identified four of the men as combat propagandists and said intelligence, including a list of Islamic Jihad operatives found by soldiers in Gaza, had confirmed that the five were affiliated with the group.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups conduct political, media and charitable operations in addition to their armed wings.
Associated Press images showed the burned shell of a pickup truck, with press marks still visible on the rear doors. Several young people attended the funeral outside the hospital, many of them sobbing. All the bodies were wrapped in white shrouds, with blue vests over them.
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The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the start of the conflict. Israel has not allowed foreign journalists to enter Gaza except on military missions.
Israel has banned the pan-Arab network Al Jazeera and charged six of its Gaza reporters of being militants. The Qatar-based broadcaster denies the allegations and accuses Israel of trying to silence its coverage of the conflict, which has largely focused on civilian casualties of Israeli military operations.
Separately, the army said a 35-year-old reserve soldier was killed during fighting in central Gaza early Thursday. A total of 389 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground operation began more than a year ago.
The conflict began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in a surprise attack on nearby military bases and farming communities. They killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250. About 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, and at least a third of them are believed to be dead.
Israel's air and ground offensive has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry. It says more than half of the deaths have been women and children, but does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The offensive has caused widespread destruction and forced approximately 90 percent of the population of 2.3 million to flee their homes. Hundreds of thousands of people are crammed into squalid camps along the coast, with little protection against the cold and wet winter.
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