Al Jazeera cameraman killed in Gaza airstrike

An Al Jazeera cameraman was killed Saturday in an Israeli airstrike on a home in central Gaza, the network said, less than three months after his brother, also an Al Jazeera journalist, died in a separate Israeli strike.

Ahmed Wishah, a cameraman for Al Jazeera Mubasher, the network’s Arabic-language live channel, was killed in the Bureij refugee camp. Al Jazeera said he was among two people killed in the raid and that at least one other Palestinian was injured. NBC News reported that two other people were also killed and others were wounded.

Al Jazeera Media Network condemned what it called the “deliberate killing” of Wishah and said it would pursue “every available legal measure to prosecute the perpetrators.” The network said it remained committed to covering events in Gaza despite what it described as the Israeli military’s “attempts to silence the voice of truth.”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment on whether Wishah was the intended target. In a statement to AFP cited by Al Jazeera, an Israeli military spokesman accused Wishah, without providing evidence, of being a “Hamas terrorist.”

Al Jazeera said Wishah was the brother of Mohammed Wishah, an Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent killed April 8 by Israeli shelling while traveling in his vehicle, according to Palestinian civil defense authorities. The Committee to Protect Journalists said the Israel Defense Forces had identified Mohammed Wishah as the intended target of that strike. Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee claimed Mohammed Wishah “was a senior figure within Hamas’ military wing,” and the military later described him as a “key terrorist in Hamas’ rocket and weapons production headquarters,” according to Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera denied the allegations against Mohammed Wishah and condemned his killing at the time as part of what it called a “systematic policy of targeting journalists and silencing the voice of truth.” A source close to Hamas also told the Committee to Protect Journalists that Mohammed Wishah had no affiliation with the group.

The press freedom group has previously criticized Israel’s “smearing of killed Palestinian journalists,” saying it had documented a pattern of Israel “accusing journalists of being terrorists without producing credible evidence.” The CPJ says at least 260 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.

The network gave differing counts of its own losses in the two accounts: Al Jazeera said Saturday that Ahmed Wishah was its 12th media worker killed in Gaza since October 2023, while NBC News reported that Al Jazeera described him as the 13th network employee killed by Israel.

Al Jazeera reported that the Bureij strike raised the number of people killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza on Saturday to 10. It said the day’s other casualties included four family members, among them two children, killed when their home was struck in central Gaza City; a man killed north of Gaza City; and a woman killed by Israeli fire in Beit Lahia. The network also reported attacks near groups of people in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood and western Khan Younis, killing at least one person and injuring others.

The strike came despite a ceasefire announced last October. NBC News reported that, while the most intense combat has subsided, Israeli forces have continued airstrikes and opened fire on Palestinians. Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday that 73,018 people have been killed and 173,273 wounded since the war began, and that Israeli attacks since the ceasefire was announced have killed 1,007 people and injured 3,165. Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the truce and failing to uphold its terms.