Five journalists of a TV channel were among the 10 people killed in the latest strikes on Gaza by Israel on early Thursday, medics with the health authorities said.
More than a dozen were wounded in the strikes, they said.
Five people were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood, the medics reported. They warned the death toll could rise as many people remained trapped under the rubble.
In a separate incident, five journalists were killed when their vehicle was struck in the vicinity of Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat in central Gaza, the enclave’s health authorities said. The journalists worked for the Al-Quds Al-Youm television channel.
Palestinian media and local reporters said the vehicle was marked as a media van and was used by journalists to report from inside the hospital and Nuseirat camp.
The Israeli army said its air force attacked the vehicle in a “targeted manner”, adding members of the Islamic Jihad militant group were inside.
Israel has been battling Hamas for the last 15 months, ever since the latter carried out a massive raid firing a barrage of rockets that provided cover for 1,500 militants to storm into southern Israel.
The raid also saw bulldozers and paragliders employed in an innovative manner to overwhelm limited resistance and carry out mass killings of unarmed civilians. Within hours 1,200 people were dead. Later it was reported that the attack, its planning and execution, had all the hallmarks of an operation masterminded by Yahya Sinwar, the now deceased head of the military wing of Hamas.
On Wednesday, Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel traded blame over their failure to conclude a ceasefire agreement despite progress reported by both sides in past days.
More than 45,361 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday.
(With inputs from Reuters)
