Press freedom organisations have condemned the killing of two journalists in Gaza on Monday, who died in separate targeted airstrikes by the Israeli armed forces.
Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old correspondent for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed by an airstrike on his car in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya.
Video reportedly from minutes after the airstrike, which has not been verified by the Guardian, shows people gathering around the shattered and smoking car and pulling a body out of the wreckage.
Mohammed Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today, was also killed on Monday, reportedly along with his wife and son, in an airstrike on his home in south Khan Younis.
In the hours after the deaths, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Palestinian press freedom organisations released statements condemning the attacks.
“CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director.
“This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour. Journalists are civilians and it is illegal to attack them in a war zone.”
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had targeted and killed Shabat and Mansour and labelled them as terrorists. The IDF said it had “eliminated the terrorist Hossam Basel Abdul Karim Shabat, a sniper terrorist from the Beit Hanoun Battalion of the Hamas terrorist organisation, who cynically posed as an Al Jazeera journalist.”
The IDF said it had documentation exposing Shabat’s “direct affiliation with the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.
The IDF also said that it had struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Khan Younis, where Mohammed Mansour was killed.
In October 2024, the IDF had accused Shabat and five other Palestinian journalists working for Al Jazeera in Gaza of being members of the militant arm of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera and Shabat denied Israel’s claims, with Shabat stating in an interview with the CPJ that “we are civilians … Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth.”
The CPJ has previously denounced the Israeli authorities for the “smearing of killed Palestinian journalists with unsubstantiated ‘terrorist’ labels”.
In its statement condemning the deaths of Shabat and Mansour, the CPJ again called on Israel to “stop making unsubstantiated allegations to justify its killing and mistreatment of members of the press”.
The CPJ estimates that more than 170 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023, making it the deadliest period for journalists since the organisation began gathering data in 1992.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says it believes the number is higher and, with the deaths of Shabat and Mansour, 208 journalists and other members of the press have been killed over the course of the conflict.
Under international law, journalists are protected civilians who must not be targeted by warring parties.
Hours after his death, Shabat’s team posted a message on X, written by the journalist to be published in the event of his death.
“I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents – anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival,” he wrote. “I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side … I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest – something I haven’t known in the past 18 months … for the last time, Hossam Shabat, from northern Gaza.”
