The Gaza Health Ministry announced today (Sunday) the killing of two journalists in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. One of them was a collaborator with Agence France-Presse (AFP), and the other was the son of Wael Dahdouh, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, who survived an airstrike last month. The ministry stated in a release: “Mustafa Tharaya and Hamza Wael Dahdouh were killed in a raid on a car in the Miraj area of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.”
AFP requested a comment from the Israeli military regarding the killing of Tharaya, a videographer in his thirties, who had been collaborating with AFP since 2019, as well as other media outlets.
Dahdouh worked with the Al Jazeera network and had over one million followers on his Instagram account, where he posted daily updates about the war. Hamza posted a story about two hours before his death, showing citizens pulling bodies from under the rubble of a house and another picture of dead bodies in what appeared to be a morgue.
Wael Dahdouh lost his wife, two of his children, and a grandchild in an Israeli airstrike on October 25, and was injured in another Israeli airstrike on December 15 that killed his colleague, photographer Samer Abu Daka.
With the deaths of journalists Tharaya and Dahdouh, the number of journalists and media workers killed since the start of the war has risen to 77, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. This number includes 70 Palestinian journalists, four Israelis, and three Lebanese who died in southern Lebanon. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate records the death of 107 journalists since the war began on October 7, according to the Arab World News Agency.
The high number of journalist deaths in Gaza has been condemned by various organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which has called for investigations into these deaths. The incidents highlight the dangers journalists face while covering conflicts and have raised concerns about the targeting of media personnel.
