Washington, D.C., April 11, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for an independent investigation into the Israeli attack on Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital that injured at least eight journalists on assignment.
On Sunday, March 31, around 11:30 a.m., an Israeli strike hit a tent encampment outside of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza. The attack killed four people and injured 17 others, including eight journalists, according to several media reports, Palestinian press freedom group MADA, and four sources who spoke to CPJ, including two of the injured journalists, another who witnessed the attack, and one who went to the site afterward. The explosion, which witnesses and media reports said was caused by a drone strike, occurred outside the hospital near a journalists’ tent provided by the Turkish Anadolu news agency.
“Israel’s March 31 attack on a hospital compound where journalists were sheltering and working must be independently investigated,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in New York. “With the Israeli destruction of media offices, journalists are increasingly turning to hospitals as venues from which to report and regroup, but the attack on Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and the March 18 attack on Al-Shifa hospital, in which journalists were arrested and assaulted, have made even hospitals unsafe for the press, in addition to doctors, patients, and other civilians. Assaults on hospitals have made it so the press have even fewer places to work safely.”
According to MADA and CPJ sources, the injured journalists include:
- Freelance photojournalist Ali Hamad, whose back was hit with missile shrapnel
- Freelance photojournalist Saeed Jars, whose knee was hit by shrapnel
- Freelance photojournalist Naaman Shteiwi, who suffered minor facial injuries
- Zain Media cameraperson Mohammed Abu Dahrouj, who was seriously injured in the leg
- Freelance photojournalist Nafez Abu Labda, whose leg was injured
- Al-Aqsa photographer Ibrahim Labad, who suffered leg injuries
- Al-Jazeera photographer Hazem Mazeed, who suffered leg injuries
- Freelance photojournalist Magdi Qaraqea, was also injured in the blast, according to CPJ sources. Those sources did not specify his injuries.
The Israel Defense Forces said that the attack struck a command center belonging to the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad; the BBC said the attack killed four militants. Abu Dahrouj, Mazeed, and Basel Khlaf, an Al-Araby TV correspondent in Gaza, who witnessed the attack but was not injured, told CPJ that they did not see any armed individuals inside the hospital or near the tents. Hamad said, “They hit the tent without any warning. We were staying in the tent as a group of journalists, peacefully, with no terrorists among us,” according to the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service.
Mazeed told CPJ that many journalists’ equipment was destroyed in the attacks, including cameras, laptops, and mobile phones – items that are increasingly hard to replace in Gaza. He also said that personal protective equipment, such as press vests, are almost impossible to find.
Khlaf and Rajaa Salha, a representative of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate in central Gaza, told CPJ that with the destruction of media offices and journalists’ homes, and with communications blackouts, more and more journalists have turned to hospitals as places where they can find shelter and electricity in order to file stories. Mazeed told CPJ that journalists in Gaza see hospitals as a relatively safe place to work, but that recent Israeli attacks on hospitals have shaken their confidence in using them as venues to conduct journalism.
CPJ has documented attacks on the press at another Gaza hospital. On March 18, during the IDF operation in Al-Shifa Hospital, Al-Jazeera Arabic reporter Ismail Al-Ghoul was detained for almost 12 hours along with several other journalists. They said IDF soldiers assaulted them, destroyed the journalists’ tent, and damaged their equipment and press vehicles. Mahmoud Elewa, a freelance correspondent for Al-Jazeera TV, and Mohamad Arab, a freelance journalist with Al-Araby TV, were among those held by the IDF during the operation. CPJ has not been able to confirm their whereabouts since then.
CPJ’s email to the IDF’s North America desk inquiring about the strike on Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and any measures the IDF took to protect journalists reporting from there did not receive a response.