Gaza City, July 23 (RHC)-- Another Palestinian journalist has been killed in an Israeli airstrike on the central part of the Gaza Strip. The government media office in the war-ravaged coastal territory said in a statement that Haider Ibrahim al-Masdar, the director of a research center, was killed in a bombing that targeted tents housing members of the press at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital courtyard in Deir al-Balah city on Monday.
The new fatality brings the total number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza to 163 since October. Medical sources said Palestinian photojournalist Muhammad al-Zaanin was also injured on Monday in an Israeli attack on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. At least 50 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured after the Israeli military launched a new assault on the eastern flank of the city.
The Israeli attacks and artillery shelling on Khan Younis came minutes after the military ordered evacuation, which the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza said would affect more than 400,000 people.
Palestinian journalist Moatasem Ghorab and four of his family members, including two girls, were also killed on Sunday in an Israeli attack on the central Gaza Strip. Medical sources at Awda Hospital said the Israeli military targeted the Ghorab family house north of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Journalists operating in the Palestinian territory face increased danger as they report on the conflict amidst Israel’s savage campaign as well as disrupted communications, supply shortages, and power outages.
According to data and statistics from the International Committee to Protect Journalists, the Israeli campaign has become “the bloodiest for journalists” since the committee began documenting journalist killings worldwide in 1992.
Israel has killed over 39,000 Palestinians, most of them women, children, and adolescents, in Gaza since October.
The regime launched the campaign of death, destruction and genocide after it was caught off-guard by Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories. Israel has been enforcing a near-total siege on the coastal territory, which has reduced into a trickle the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory.
