Hilmi al-Faqaawi, a social media manager for the pro-Palestinian Islamic Jihad broadcaster Palestine Today TV, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a tent in Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis at around 1:25 am on April 7, 2025.
The tent belonged to his outlet and housed multiple journalists.
Palestine Today new agency editor Ahmed Mansour, who was also in the tent, was severely burned and died later the same day.
Eight other journalists were injured in the attack: BBC Arabic contributor Ahmed Al-Agha, freelance photojournalist and drone operator Mohammed Fayeq, Anadolu Agency photographer Abdullah Al-Attar, camera operator Ihab Al-Bardini, Al Jazeera camera operator Mahmoud Awad, Radio Algerie correspondent Majed Qudaih, Alam24 photographer Ali Eslayeh, and AFP photographer Abed Shaat.
The Israel Defense Forces said the strike targeted Hassan Eslayeh, a freelance photographer “who was with Hamas on October 7, 2023.” The IDF said Eslayeh, who was injured on April 7, 2025, was a “terrorist” who “participated in the bloody massacre.”
Footage verified by Reuters news agency showed people trying to douse flames in the tent while other images of someone trying to rescue a journalist in flames were widely shared online.
Tamer Qishta, editor-in-chief of the local daily pro-Hamas newspaper Felesteen (Palestine), who was working in a nearby tent, told CPJ that Palestine Today TV’s tent was targeted with a single missile at around 1:25 a.m.
“I got up from my seat and went to document immediately. I found some of the journalists burning. I quickly put down my cell phone, which had been recording, and began trying to rescue the wounded,” Qishta said. “The missile fell on the first three meters of the tent in its southern part, where journalist Ahmed Mansour, who suffered severe burns, and martyr Hilmi al-Faqaawi were located. The rest of the journalists … were located in the northern part.”
CPJ’s email to the IDF’s North America Media Desk inquiring about the attack on the journalists’ tent did not receive an immediate response.