Israeli attacks on multiple residential structures in Gaza's Khan Younis have killed at least 38 Palestinians including 14 children on Friday. Of these, 13 children were from the same family. According to Al Jazeera, the children died of suffocation as a result of the smoke from Israeli missiles.
The deaths reported by Gaza health officials were the latest in the southern Gaza city, where people have in recent days lined up for bread outside the city's only bakery in operation.
The attacks happened a day after United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel had accomplished its objective of “effectively dismantling” Hamas.
Hours before Blinken was set to meet with Arab leaders in London on Friday, Israeli army struck a guesthouses where journalists were staying in southeast Lebanon killing three journalists.
The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike. Representatives of the news networks and Lebanese politicians accused Israel of war crimes and intentionally targeting journalists.
“These were just journalists that were sleeping in bed after long days of covering the conflict,” said Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English who was among the journalists in the compound.
The Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its staffers — camera operator Ghassan Najar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida — were among the journalists killed early Friday.
Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said its camera operator Wissam Qassim was also killed in the airstrike on the Hasbaya region.
Al-Mayadeen’s director Ghassan bin Jiddo alleged that the Israeli strike on a compound housing journalists was intentional and directed at those covering elements of its military offensive. He vowed that the Beirut-based station would continue its work.
Lebanon's Information Minister Ziad Makary said the journalists were killed while broadcasting what he called Israel's crimes, and noted they were among a large group of members of the media.
“This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the location representing seven media institutions,” he wrote in a post on X.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike.
Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar’s well-known correspondent in south Lebanon, was seen in a video filming himself with a cellphone saying that the camera operator who had been working with him for months was killed. Shoeib said the Israeli military knew that the area that was struck housed journalists of different media organizations.
“We were reporting the news and showing the suffering of the victims and now we are the news and the victims of Israel’s crimes,” Shoeib added in the video aired on Al-Manar TV.
This has brought the toll of journalists killed by Israel in Lebenon to 11.
In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV.
The killing of journalists has prompted international outcry from press advocacy groups and United Nations experts, although Israel has said it does not deliberately target them.
On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said it had preliminarily counted 128 journalists killed in Gaza since the war began.
Israel has accused journalists working for Al Jazeera of being members of militant groups. The network has denied the claims as “a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists has dismissed them as well, and said that “Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence.”
Meanwhile, Jordan's foreign minister on Friday called for pressure on Israel to end "ethnic cleansing" in northern Gaza in strong remarks as he met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in London.
Deploring Israel's attacks and miliartry operations in northern Gaza, Ayman Safadi told Blinken, "We do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop."
"We really stand at the brink of regional war now. The only path to save the region from that is for Israel to stop the aggressions on Gaza, on Lebanon, stop unilateral measures, illegal measures, in the West Bank, that is also pushing the situation to an abyss," he added.
Israel has so far killed at least 42,800 Palestinians including at least 17000 children and 11400 women since the beginning of its recent war on Gaza. It has also killed nearly 1,000 health workers and 220 UN workers in Gaza.
(With inputs from AP, AFP)
