Amr Abu Odeh, a 26-year-old Palestinian freelance photographer for Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency and Reuters news agency was killed on October 31, 2024, by a strike from an Israeli drone that hit a group of civilians in the Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, according to the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes and news reports.
“We fled our home in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip to the Al-Shati refugee camp,” Yahya Abu Odeh, Amr’s brother, told CPJ. “On Thursday afternoon, an Israeli drone targeted a group of citizens in the camp, including Amr, which led to his immediate death.”
Abu Odeh’s sister, Hanan, told CPJ that her brother began working in journalism when he was only 15. His passion for photography led him to cover the 2018 Great March of Return protests.
Abu Odeh was buried in Gaza City on October 31, 2024.
CPJ emailed the Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk inquiring if it knew that civilians and journalists were in the area it bombed and whether Abu Odeh was targeted for his work but didn’t immediately receive a response.