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, in an Israeli drone strike that hit a group of civilians in the Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, according to reports and family members.
“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.
He 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 did not receive a response.
In June 2026, CPJ undertook a review of its documentation of journalists and media workers killed in the Israel-Gaza war since 2023, and examined online claims alleging that Abu Odeh was a combatant after undated images circulated of him posing with a rifle while wearing a military uniform.
Interviews with two independent sources and one family member, as well as desk research, confirmed that the circulating images were from a 2021 governmental training course with the Ministry of Interior in Gaza.
No armed factions in Gaza have claimed Abu Odeh as being affiliated with them, and the IDF has not alleged he was involved in combat. He worked as an active photojournalist throughout the latest war in Gaza, the sources said.
Therefore, CPJ has determined that Abu Odeh was not an active combatant at the time of his death and that he qualified as a journalist under CPJ’s methodology. CPJ has retained him in its database as a journalist.
CPJ continues to investigate cases involving journalists killed in the Israel-Gaza war and routinely reviews and updates its documentation when credible new information becomes available.