An Israeli airstrike hit a tent for journalists camped outside the Nassar Hospital in Gaza on Monday. One reporter and another man died in the attack.
One of the survivors, Abed Shaat, explained how the Israeli strike ignited a gas tank and burned his colleague Hilmi al-Faqaawi to death. “I started taking pictures from a distance, but as I got closer to the burning tent, I saw one of my colleagues on fire,” he said. “The fire was intense. There was a gas canister that had exploded, and another one that was burning. I tried to pull him out by his leg, but his pants tore off in my hand. I tried from another angle, but I couldn’t.”
Graphic footage posted on social media shows a man burning inside the tent while another man tries to save him and others attempt to put out the fire.
Al-Faqaawi worked for Palestine Today. A second man, Yousef al-Khazindar, was also killed. Nine other journalists, including Hassan Eslaih, Ahmed al-Agha, Muhammad Fayek, Abdallah Al-Attar, Ihab al-Bardini and Mahmoud Awad, were injured.
In a statement on X, the Israeli military confirmed it had intentionally targeted the journalists’ tent, saying that “The IDF and ISA struck the Hamas terrorist Hassan Abdel Fattah Mohammed [Eslaih] in the Khan Yunis area overnight.” Eslaih has serious injuries.
“[Eslaih], who operates under the guise of a journalist and owns a press company, is a terrorist operative in Hamas’ Khan Yunis Brigade. On October 7, he infiltrated Israeli territory and participated in Hamas’ murderous massacre.” It added that Eslaih “documented and uploaded footage of looting, arson and murder to social media.”
Over the past 18 months, Israel has killed over 200 journalists in Gaza. While the IDF claimed that “Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence,” it did not explain why it targeted Eslaih when he was outside of a hospital surrounded by other reporters.
A statement from the Gaza government media office denied that Eslaih was a member of Hamas. “The occupation’s claim that Eslaih crossed into the occupied land and took part in the October 7 incidents is part of a policy to discredit and fabricate that the occupation adopts to justify attacks on journalists and media personnel,” a local official explained to Reuters.
In a separate strike in Khan Yunis, an Israeli bomb hit a food delivery site, killing seven, including three children. Since breaking a ceasefire deal with Hamas in March, Israel has killed nearly 500 Palestinian children.
