Israel-Hamas War Particularly Deadly for Journalists

The Palestinian Authority's television channel accuses Israel of carrying out a "deliberate assassination" of one of its journalists. An Israeli airstrike struck Mohammed Abu Hatab's home in Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis on Thursday, killing the journalist and 10 family members, according to Palestine TV. Abu Hatab "fell as a martyr along with members of his family in an Israeli bombardment against his home," the station said in a statement, per Al Jazeera. It claimed the airstrike hit Abu Hatab's apartment shortly after he returned to it. Half an hour earlier, the journalist had been reporting live from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis about casualties from Israeli airstrikes, the station said, per CNN.

At least 11 people were killed in the strike, sources at Nasser Hospital told Al Jazeera. Palestine TV journalist Salman Al Bashir broke the news in a live report from the scene that left an anchor in tears, per CNN. "We can't bear this anymore," he said. "We are exhausted, we are here victims and martyrs awaiting our deaths, we are dying one after the other and no one cares about us." He then removed his protective vest and helmet, marked with the word "PRESS." "This protection gear does not protect us," Al Bashir said. There is "no protection, no international protection at all, no immunity to anything."

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in the last month have killed at least 9,025 people, including thousands of children, and left more than 22,000 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. At least 33 journalists—28 Palestinians, four Israelis, and one citizen of Lebanon—have been killed, making this the deadliest war for journalists in decades, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Palestine TV said this particular airstrike was "a bloody message" meant "to terrorize Palestinian journalists" and keep them from "conveying the suffering of the Palestinian people and exposing the crimes of the occupation." It vowed to continue reporting "no matter how many crimes the occupying state commits against our journalists." (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)