Israeli drone strike kills Al Jazeera journalist in Gaza

Qatar-based Al Jazeera said on Saturday that an Israeli strike killed one of its journalists in the Gaza Strip, the latest of several people working for the broadcaster killed in the Palestinian territory since October 7, 2023.

An Israeli military spokesman told AFP the military "confirms it carried out a strike on Ahmed Wishah, who was a Hamas terrorist", but did not provide any evidence to support the accusation.

"Ahmed Wishah, a cameraman for Al Jazeera, has been killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza," Al Jazeera said on its website.

A correspondent for the channel said the strike was carried out by a drone in the refugee camp and also wounded several people.

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The broadcaster said Wishah's brother and fellow Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed had been killed in April "by Israeli shelling when he was travelling in his vehicle".

The Israeli military said in a statement issued late Saturday that Ahmed Wishah was killed in a "precise strike" alongside two other Hamas militants and that he had served as a "sniper operative" in Hamas.

"Alongside his work as an Al Jazeera photojournalist in recent years, Wishah was an operative in Hamas' military wing," the military said.

"In recent months, he advanced sniper attack plans and additional terrorist activities against IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip," the military said, adding that he had worked alongside his now killed brother Mohammed.

"Due to his recent military activity and the threat he posed to IDF troops operating in the area, he was eliminated in a precise aerial strike," the military statement said. It provided no evidence in support of its claim that Ahmed Wishah was a Hamas militant.

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When Mohammed Wishah's was killed in April, media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Israeli forces had killed more than 220 journalists since the war in Gaza erupted. At least 70 of them were killed in the context of their professional duties.

The war in Gaza started after Hamas's deadly assault on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli army has repeatedly said it never deliberately targets journalists.

But since October 2023, it has claimed to have killed a number of people who it says were Palestinian militant "terrorists" working under the guise of being media professionals.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)