Ahmed Abu Hussein, a Palestinian photojournalist, died on April 25, 2018, from bullet wounds to his abdomen sustained on April 13, 2018, while he was covering protests in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia for Voice of the People Radio, according to news reports.
After Abu Hussein was hit with a live round, he was taken in critical condition to the Indonesian Hospital in Jabalia for treatment and on April 15 was transferred to the Palestinian Medical Compound in Ramallah, according to Palestinian journalist Moneeb Saada, news reports, and social media posts.
On April 19, the journalist was taken to the Tel Hashomer Hospital in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv, where he died six days later, according to news reports.
Abu Hussein, who was wearing a vest marked “PRESS” and a helmet, was standing among civilians and taking pictures of the burning of tires from behind the protest when he was shot, according to the reports.
On April 30, 2018, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay called for an investigation into the killing of Abu Hussein.
Abu Hussein was one of two journalists killed covering the protest movement, which lasted around a year and a half, during which Palestinians demonstrated to end the Israeli siege on Gaza and return to historic homelands inside Israel. The other journalist was Yaser Murtaja, who was also killed in April 2018. Dozens of journalists were also injured, leading a 2019 U.N. inquiry to find “reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot journalists intentionally.”
For three years, Abu Hussein covered Palestinian politics and social and youth issues for Voice of the People Radio, a Gaza-based radio station affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other local media outlets, according to his colleague at the radio station, Yousef Anbar.
In an April 2023 email the IDF told CPJ that Abu Hussein was “allegedly present at the scene of the violent riots. The riots included gunfire at IDF soldiers, attempts to infiltrate Israeli territory and damage security infrastructure, the burning of tires and hurling of stones, molotov cocktails, explosives and grenades at soldiers, endangering their lives.” The IDF said it launched a preliminary probe, known as a fact-finding assessment, into Abu Hussein’s death and “no suspicion was found which would justify the opening of a criminal investigation.”
The IDF said it had also “called on civilians to avoid approaching the area of active combat and violent riots led by the Hamas terrorist organization.”
This report was updated on April 25, 2023.