Israeli attacks in Gaza on Thursday included a strike on a vehicle that killed five journalists and strikes near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, which killed at least five medical workers.
Early Thursday morning, an Israeli strike hit a vehicle clearly marked “press” that killed five journalists for the TV channel Al Quds Today. According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, the slaughter brings the total number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel since October 2023 to 201.
The press vehicle was hit near the gates of the al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, central Gaza. According to Al Jazeera, one journalist’s wife was in the hospital giving birth to their first child.
The Israeli security agency Shin Bet acknowledged the strike and claimed it targeted Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants who were “masquerading as journalists” but offered no evidence to back up the claim.
According to Drop Site News, three medical workers were killed in a strike on a residential building near the Kamal Adwan Hospital. A total of 50 Palestinians are believed to have been killed in the strike.
“There are approximately 50 martyrs, including three of our medical staff, under the rubble of a building opposite Kamal Adwan Hospital after an airstrike by the occupying forces,” said Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
The dead medical workers included a pediatrician, a lab specialist, and a maintenance. Two paramedics were killed in separate strikes near the hospital.
Kamal Adwan has come under near-daily Israeli attacks since the Israeli military began an ethnic cleansing campaign that’s focused on Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia. The Israeli military has been forcibly displacing Palestinian civilians and destroying every building in sight, so they have nowhere to return.
Israeli strikes pounded targets elsewhere in Gaza on Thursday, and the Health Ministry said in its daily update that at least 38 Palestinians were killed and 137 were wounded in the previous 24-hour period. The ministry’s numbers don’t account for Palestinians who are missing and presumed dead under the rubble or indirect deaths that were a result of the US-backed Israeli siege.
The ministry said the latest violence brought its death toll since October 2023 to 45,399 and the number of wounded to 107,940.
In October, a group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza estimated in an open letter to President Biden that the US-backed Israeli onslaught has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, a total that includes indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who led the letter, told Antiwar.com in a recent interview that the estimate was the bare minimum they came up with by looking at the available data.
