Rami Al Refee, a 27-year-old Palestinian camera operator with the local Watania Media Agency who was also freelancing for Al Jazeera Arabic TV channel during the Israel-Gaza war, was killed in an Israeli drone strike with Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Ismail Al Ghoul as they were leaving Al Shati refugee camp, near Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera and news reports.
Al Ghoul and Al Refee were reporting on the aftermath of the assassination of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran the night before, and were filming outside his family home in Gaza before they were killed.
When an Israeli strike hit a nearby building, the group of journalists working in the area decided to leave for their safety, Al Jazeera said in its live coverage. Reporting from Al-Ahli Hospital later that day, Al Jazeera’s northern Gaza correspondent Anas Al Sharif said that the journalists left in two vehicles, and Al Ghoul and Al Refee’s car was hit about five minutes later.
Al Araby TV correspondent Islam Badr, who was at the scene, gave a similar account to his outlet, saying that no clashes were taking place in the area.
“It is clear that it was a deliberate targeting because the building next to the place where Ismail and Rami stopped on the street of Ismail Haniyeh’s house was initially hit by a missile from an Israeli drone,” Badr told CPJ from northern Gaza.
“So they left just minutes before 5:00 p.m. and considered the missile attack a warning to evacuate the place. They evacuated it immediately and got into the car quickly … After a distance of between 300 and 500 meters (330 and 550 yards), and within less than five minutes, their car was directly targeted by a drone missile,” Badr said.
CPJ also interviewed freelance photographer Osama Al Ashi, who was the first to arrive at the scene after the strike.
"Ismail and Rami escaped the first targeting at Haniyeh’s house,” he told CPJ. “They rushed [away] in the car, which was marked as “TV,” in addition to them wearing the “Press” vests and helmets, heading to the Baptist Al-Ahli Hospital the center of Gaza City, where they were staying."
Al Ashi said that the second Israeli drone strike hit the journalists’ car on the outskirts of the refugee camp, adding, "I was close to the targeting site, but I knew that they were the targets. I found a child who was martyred [killed] while riding a bicycle, a microphone fallen on the ground near him, and a white car a few meters away. When I came closer, I realized that Ismail and Rami were martyred."
Al Jazeera aired videos of the moments after the strike hit the journalists’ car, which was driven backwards by the impact. It also broadcast footage of Al Ghoul and Al Refee’s bodies being removed from the car. Their bodies were taken to Al-Ahli Hospital, commonly known as Al-Mamadani, where colleagues said their last goodbyes.
In a July 31 statement, Al Jazeera described the killing as “part of a systematic targeting campaign against the network’s journalists and their families since October 2023.” It said that “Ismail and Rami were targeted with a missile, resulting in cold-blooded assassination” and pledged to “pursue all legal actions to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes and stands in unwavering solidarity with all journalists in Gaza.”
On August 1, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that it had killed Al Ghoul in an airstrike, alleging that he was a member of Hamas’ military wing. “As part of his role in the military wing, Al-Ghoul instructed other operatives on how to record operations and was actively involved in recording and publicizing attacks against IDF troops. His activities in the field were a vital part of Hamas’ military activity,” it said. Neither of these statements addressed the killing of Al Refee.
Al Jazeera strongly rejected what it called “the baseless allegations made by the Israeli occupation forces in an attempt to justify its deliberate killing” of the two journalists “without providing any proof, documentation or video.”
The journalist’s father, Iyad Al Refee, told CPJ that his son studied computer science and communications in college. Prior to the October 7, 2023, start of the Israel-Gaza war, Rami Al Refee worked as a broadcast engineer at the privately owned local media company Watania Media Agency, while also learning photography.
“We live in the Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City, and we did not leave it. As a result of the displacement of photographers and journalists and their move to the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, including Al Jazeera crews, only a few photographers were left in Gaza City. Rami started collaborating with Ismail Al Ghoul and Al Jazeera,” Iyad Al Refee said.
Watania Media Agency’s CEO Samer Tarazi told CPJ that Watania Media Agency provided broadcast services to Al Jazeera and Rami Al Refee also had a “special agreement between him and Al Jazeera as a cameraman accompanying Ismail Al Ghoul.”
Iyad Al Refee said that his son and Al Ghoul were both detained for about 12 hours by Israel Defense Forces during their raid on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital in March, along with Watania News Agency’s Tarazi.
“[The Israeli forces] asked them [the journalists] to head south, but after their release they did not go south and remained in Gaza," said Iyad Al Refee.
The IDF’s North America Desk did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment on whether they were aware that Al Refee was accompanying Al Ghoul and whether Al Refee was also a target when they fired on the journalists’ vehicle. The IDF also did not answer CPJ’s question as to why their forces released Al Ghoul after the Al-Shifa raid if they believed that he was a Hamas military operative.
Iyad Al Refee said that his son followed the news closely and slept where he was working, which was Al-Shifa hospital before it was destroyed in March, and then Al-Ahli Hospital. Many journalists in Gaza base themselves in hospitals to witness news and access electricity to power their equipment.
“He would visit us once or twice a week at our home, from which we had been displaced twice, to eat and spend the night, and he would talk to us about what he faced at work,” Iyad Al Refee said.
Rami Al Refee was buried in Gaza City on July 31, 2024.