GAZA: A Palestinian journalist was killed in a Zionist air strike in the Gaza Strip and another was wounded, the official Palestinian news agency reported Tuesday. Mohammad Abu Hasira was the latest among dozens of journalists killed since Zionist forces began bombarding Gaza following a Hamas attack on settler communities and army bases south of the entity.
He "was killed in a Zionist bombing that targeted his house located near the fishermen’s port west of Gaza City,” said the WAFA news agency, where he worked. WAFA reported that Abu Hasira "and 42 members of his family, including his sons and brothers” were killed in the strike. The Hamas-run news press service in the Gaza Strip said the bombardment that killed Abu Hasira took place overnight between Sunday and Monday, but that his body was only found in the rubble on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the official Palestinian TV station said one of its correspondents in the Gaza Strip was killed in a Zionist air strike in the southern Gaza Strip. Palestine TV accused the Zionist entity of carrying out a "deliberate assassination” of Mohammed Abu Hatab as it bombed his family home in Gaza’s Khan Younis, in the south of the territory, on Thursday.
Sources at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said at least 11 people were killed in the strike. A statement from the TV station said an air strike hit Abu Hatab’s apartment shortly after his arrival. It asserted that the attack "is a bloody message to terrorize Palestinian journalists,” intended to stop them from "conveying the suffering of the Palestinian people and exposing the crimes of the occupation”.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Monday that at least 37 journalists and media employees (32 Palestinians, four Zionists, one Lebanese citizen) had been killed since the start of the war.
‘March of coffins’
On Tuesday, The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) delivered a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Zionist crimes against journalists in the Gaza Strip, and the targeting of their homes and families, calling on the UN chief to hold the Zionist entity accountable for its crimes through the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to WAFA.
The letter was delivered to the United Nations office in Ramallah following the "march of coffins” with the participation of dozens of journalists who carried empty coffins with pictures of the 31 Palestinian journalists killed during the Zionist entity’s 32-day-long brutal and sweeping air, land and sea bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip.
"Historically, the (Zionist) occupation forces have been targeting Palestinian journalists systemically, as since the year 2000 more than 80 journalists have been killed by the (Zionist) occupation forces, more than 40 percent of them have been killed this month,” said the letter.
It said that the Zionist occupation forces have been taking advantage from impunity and committing cruel crimes against journalists, ignoring the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists. The letter called on the United Nations "to take concreted action ... to provide protection to Palestinian journalists and hold Zionist occupation leaders accountable through the International Criminal Court for perpetrating crimes against journalists.”
Zionist ‘intimidation’
In a separate incident, a journalist with Lebanese Al-Mayadeen television channel filed a police complaint against a Zionist journalist who she alleged had "intimidated” her. Hana Mohamed said Zionist journalist Haim Etgar confronted her at a post office after allegedly impersonating a postal employee and "threatening” her.
"This is not the first time that this journalist has chased Arab journalists and intimidated them,” she told AFP. "When a journalist gives himself the authority to question another journalist like a policeman it legitimizes racist attacks on anyone,” Mohamed said.
Etgar posted on his Instagram account a video of him following Mohamed out of the post office to her car, asking about her take on the war, Mayadeen’s coverage and accusing her of broadcasting "fake news,” such as that the Zionist army is using chemical weapons.
"We tried to ask questions, as always politely and without physical contact,” Etgar wrote, alleging that Mayadeen was affiliated with Hezbollah, the militant group in Lebanon. "We didn’t get answers.” There was no indication from police as to whether they were launching an investigation following the complaint. — Agencies