Israeli airstrike on hospital camp used by gaza journalists kills 10 people

Israeli airstrike on hospital camp used by Gaza journalists kills 10 people

Here is some more detail from my colleague Ruth Michaelson on the deadly bombing of a tent housing journalists near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis:

An Israeli airstrike on a tent camp within a hospital complex in the southern Gaza City of Khan Younis has killed 10 people, including a journalist, while seriously injuring dozens more after their encampment caught fire.

Images and video from the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis showed people desperately attempting to extinguish the fires as it burned through a row of tents. One video showed people screaming as a bystander attempted to move a burning piece of furniture, while a journalist, later identified as Ahmed Mansour of the news outlet Palestine Today, sat upright engulfed by the blaze.

His colleague Helmi al-Faqawi was killed in the strike, while at least nine other journalists were among the wounded. Mansour received treatment for severe burns while the photographer Hassan Aslih was reportedly in a stable condition after suffering a head injury and cuts to his right hand.

The Palestinian foreign ministry in Ramallah said 10 people had been killed in the airstrike, with many more wounded. The ministry called al-Faqawi’s death an act of “extrajudicial killing,” labelling it part of growing crimes against journalists and an attempt to prevent the media from covering events on the ground.

A journalist in the wreckage of tents targeted by Israeli forces near Nasser hospital in southern Gaza.

A journalist in the wreckage of tents targeted by Israeli forces near Nasser hospital in southern Gaza. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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Israeli airstrike on hospital camp used by Gaza journalists kills 10 people

Here is some more detail from my colleague Ruth Michaelson on the deadly bombing of a tent housing journalists near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis:

An Israeli airstrike on a tent camp within a hospital complex in the southern Gaza City of Khan Younis has killed 10 people, including a journalist, while seriously injuring dozens more after their encampment caught fire.

Images and video from the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis showed people desperately attempting to extinguish the fires as it burned through a row of tents. One video showed people screaming as a bystander attempted to move a burning piece of furniture, while a journalist, later identified as Ahmed Mansour of the news outlet Palestine Today, sat upright engulfed by the blaze.

His colleague Helmi al-Faqawi was killed in the strike, while at least nine other journalists were among the wounded. Mansour received treatment for severe burns while the photographer Hassan Aslih was reportedly in a stable condition after suffering a head injury and cuts to his right hand.

The Palestinian foreign ministry in Ramallah said 10 people had been killed in the airstrike, with many more wounded. The ministry called al-Faqawi’s death an act of “extrajudicial killing,” labelling it part of growing crimes against journalists and an attempt to prevent the media from covering events on the ground.

Germany has called for an urgent investigation into the “shocking” accusations that Israeli forces knowingly fired on a convoy of ambulances in an attack that killed 15 emergency workers in Gaza on 23 March.

“There are very significant questions about the actions of the Israeli army now,” foreign ministry spokesperson Christian Wagner said after new video footage emerged raising questions about the circumstances of the attack.

“An investigation and accountability of the perpetrators are urgently needed,” he said.

Wagner said the accusations against the Israeli military were “shocking” and “really terrible” and “urgently need to be cleared up”.

Fully investigating the incident will be “a question that ultimately affects the credibility of the Israeli constitutional state”, he said.

The Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, Bethan McKernan, reports the following:

Israel’s military has backtracked on its account of the killing of 15 Palestinian medics in Gaza last month after footage contradicted its claims that their vehicles did not have emergency signals on when Israeli troops opened fire.

The military said initially it opened fire because the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” on nearby troops without headlights or emergency signals. An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations late on Saturday, said that account was “mistaken”.

The almost seven-minute video, which the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Saturday was recovered from the phone of Rifat Radwan, one of the men killed, appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle. It shows a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights.

The vehicle stops beside another that has driven off the road. Two men get out to examine the stopped vehicle, then gunfire erupts before the screen goes black