The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Monday he was “very concerned” about the “high number” of Palestinian journalists killed in the Gaza Strip, after two reporters died on Sunday.
• Also read: Al-Jazeera accuses Israel of targeting journalists in Gaza
“The killings of all journalists,” including Hamza Waël Dahdouh and Moustafa Thuraya in an attack attributed to the Israeli army, “must be thoroughly and independently investigated to ensure strict compliance with international law, and violators must be prosecuted,” emphasized the Office of the High Commissioner in a message on the social network X.
With these two deaths, at least 79 journalists and media workers have been killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Al Jazeera television said on Sunday that two of its Palestinian journalists were killed in an Israeli attack on their car in the Gaza Strip and accused the Israeli army of “attacking” Palestinian journalists.
Hamza Waël Dahdouh, a journalist for the Al Jazeera channel, and his colleague Moustafa Thuraya, a freelance videographer who worked for the Qatari broadcaster and collaborated with AFP and other international media, were killed while driving on the southern tip of the Qatari Palestinian Territory, around “to carry out their work,” Al Jazeera said.
A third journalist traveling with him, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.
The Israeli army told AFP it had “encountered a terrorist who was piloting an aircraft that posed a threat to the troops,” adding that it was aware of “information that two other suspects were killed during the attack “The same vehicle was also attacked.”
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, the Islamic movement that controls the Gaza Strip, after its unprecedented attack on its territory on October 7 that killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count of Israeli records.
The ongoing Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip has claimed more than 23,000 lives, mostly civilians, according to the latest report from Hamas, which is classified as a “terrorist group” by the United States and the European Union.