Earlier on Tuesday, three Palestinian journalists were killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City, as serious fighting rages for a consecutive fourth day, a media union and an official said.
In a statement, the Hamas-run media office said that the latest casualties obtained the number of Palestinian journalists killed in the fighting since Saturday to seven.
“The martyrdom of three journalists in the Gaza Strip in the ongoing Israeli aggression”, the Gaza Journalists’ syndicate announced.
The media chief of Gaza’s Hamas-run government, Salameh Maarouf, identified the three as Said al-Taweel, director of Al-Khamisa news agency; press photographer Mohammed Sobboh, and Hisham Nawajhah, a correspondent for a Gaza news agency.
They were killed in Israel’s strike while covering the evacuation of a residential building near Gaza City’s fishing port, Maarouf said, criticizing Israel’s “criminal behavior against journalists”.
Members of the press were standing several dozen meters from the building after a resident got a telephone call from the Israeli army cautioning of an imminent strike, an AFP correspondent reported.
The Israeli strike hit another building, nearest to where the journalists had been, Witnesses said.
Journalist Asad Shamlakh was killed on Sunday, the media office statement said, adding two cameramen were still missing and 10 journalists had been injured.
According to the Palestinian statement and the Committee to Protect Journalists three journalists were killed on Saturday.
Photographer Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi, Reporter Mohammad Jarghoun, and Mohammad El-Salhi had been shot dead in separate incidents, the New York-based media rights group said on Monday.
Sherif Mansour of the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement, “We call on all sides to remember that journalists are civilians and should not be targeted.”
“Accurate reporting is critical during times of crisis and the media has a vital role to play in bringing news from Gaza and Israel to the world.”
