‘Chaos, disbelief and fear’: Journalists among at least 19 killed in twin strikes on Gaza hospital

“We are urgently seeking more information and have asked authorities in Gaza and Israel to help us get urgent medical assistance for Hatem.”

The AP said it was shocked and saddened by the death of Dagga, who frequently based herself at Nasser, most recently reporting on the hospital’s doctors struggling to save children from starvation.

“We are doing everything we can to keep our journalists in Gaza safe as they continue to provide crucial eyewitness reporting in difficult and dangerous conditions,” it said.

Israel’s military in a statement confirmed it had struck targets in the area of the hospital. It said it would conduct an investigation into the incident and that “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and does not target journalists as such”.

A British doctor who was working on the floor that was hit just after 10am, Gaza time, said the second strike hit before people could start evacuating from the first.

“Just absolute scenes of chaos, disbelief, and fear,” the doctor said. People wounded from the strikes – either directly caught in the blast or hit by debris – entered the ward, leaving trails of blood. Stretchers rushed past visitors searching for loved ones. The chaos hit as the hospital was already overwhelmed, with patients with IV drips lying on the floors in the corridors in stifling heat, they said.

The journalists’ deaths come two weeks after one of Al-Jazeera’s most recognisable faces reporting from Gaza, Anas al-Sharif, was killed alongside four colleagues in a strike on a tent near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Israel accused Sharif of being a Hamas cell leader posing as a journalist, a claim rejected by rights advocates, Al-Jazeera and organisations representing journalists.

The Israel-Hamas war has been one of the bloodiest conflicts for media workers, with at least 192 journalists killed in Gaza in the 22-month conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Comparatively, 18 journalists have been killed so far in the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the committee.

The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate condemned Israel for the strikes, saying they represented “an open war against free media, with the aim of terrorising journalists and preventing them from fulfilling their professional duty of exposing its crimes to the world”.

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Aside from rare guided tours, Israel has barred international media from covering the war in person. News organisations instead rely largely on Palestinian journalists in Gaza – as well as residents – to show the world what is happening there. Israel often questions the affiliations and biases of Palestinian journalists, but doesn’t permit others in.

Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital, the largest in southern Gaza, has withstood raids and bombardment throughout 22 months of war, and officials cite critical shortages of supplies and staff.

Israel’s attacks on hospitals are not uncommon in its war against Hamas in Gaza. Hospitals have been struck or raided across the strip, with Israel claiming it was attacking militants operating from inside the medical facilities, without providing evidence.

A June strike on Nasser Hospital killed three people and wounded 10, according to the health ministry. At the time, Israel’s military said it had targeted Hamas militants operating from a command and control centre inside the hospital. A March strike on the hospital’s surgical unit, days after a ceasefire broke down, killed two people.

The health ministry said on Sunday that at least 62,686 Palestinians had been killed in the war. It does not distinguish between fighters and civilians, but says about half have been women and children. The United Nations and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

Reuters, AP

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