Mohammed Balousha, a 38-year-old Palestinian journalist and a reporter for the Emirati-owned Dubai-based Al Mashhad Media was killed in an Israeli drone strike when he was returning from a medical checkup at the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood clinic in northern Gaza City, on December 14, 2024, according to the outlet and multiple news reports.
Al Mashhad TV, as well as Balousha’s wife and a friend who witnessed the attack, said they believe the strike was targeted.
Balousha’s friend and neighbor, Abdul Karim Kalloup, told CPJ that he’d accompanied Balousha to the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood clinic for a medical check-up following a December 2023 Israeli shooting that left him with two gunshot wounds.
They were on their way home about 11 a.m., crossing the street leading to Balousha’s house while taking their usual precaution of keeping a distance of several yards between them “out of fear of being targeted en masse by Israeli drones with bullets, missiles, or bombs,” when Balousha was killed. “About 700 meters (about 770 yards) before he reached his house, an Israeli drone struck him directly,” said Kalloup.
Kalloup added that he could not reach Balousha immediately “as I was hiding behind a wall, and the drone targeted him with a second strike, then I was able to reach him and rescue him.” Kalloup said Balousha suffered a critical chest injury, but was still alive when Kalloup called an ambulance. “The ambulance told me that the occupation [forces] asked them not to enter the area. After about half an hour an ambulance arrived, but Mohammed had passed away."
Kalloup told CPJ he believes that the drone “certainly monitored” the route taken by Balousha – who used crutches after being shot by Israeli forces – from his home to the clinic and back.
Fatima Al-Balawi, Balousha’s wife, told CPJ that she and her four children were displaced to the central and southern Gaza Strip in mid-October 2023, and they had not seen Mohammed for 14 months. She added: “I contacted him on the night of his martyrdom. I was very afraid for him, and I kind of felt that his end was near, especially since the artillery shelling was intense and violent. He was brave and always reassured me that he would stay well for us, but this is the first time he broke his promise to us.”
Al-Balawi said that her husband had returned to covering the war about five months after he was shot in the thigh while reporting on the war from northern Gaza on December 16, 2023. According to his outlet Al Mashhad, Al Jazeera, and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, the bullet was fired by an Israeli sniper. "I believe that targeting Balousha was deliberate, because when he was first injured, he was wearing a press shield, and it was very clear that he was a journalist,” said Al-Balaawi.
Balousha said in a video about his shooting that he lost consciousness for about 30 minutes after “six hours of agony” and was roused by the nuzzling of cats he was feeding before the shooting. Al Mashhad said that Israeli forces intercepted the ambulances sent to evacuate him, delaying his transfer to a hospital for treatment.
In late November, Balousha broke a story that four premature babies left behind at al-Nasr Children’s Hospital died and their bodies had decomposed after Israel forced the staff to evacuate without ambulances. Balousha accused Israel of directly targeting him. “I was wearing everything to prove that I was a journalist, but they deliberately targeted me, and now I am struggling to get the treatment necessary to preserve my life,” he told The Washington Post.
Journalists have told CPJ that they are working in catastrophic conditions in northern Gaza and that ethnic cleansing is taking place in a news void in the area.
CPJ did not immediately receive a response to its email to the North America Media Desk of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) asking whether the IDF knew there were civilians in the areas that it bombed, and if journalists were targeted for their work.