A Palestinian journalist and eleven of his family members have been killed in what the Palestinian Authority television channel calls an Israeli airstrike.
On live television, his colleague, Salman Al Bashir, is reached by the news.
– We can’t take this anymore, we are exhausted. We die one by one, he says while taking off his protective vest and helmet.
Mohammad Abu Hattab, who worked as a reporter for Palestine TV, reported live from Nasser Hospital in Gaza – just 30 minutes later he was killed in his home.
According to the state news agency WAFA, his family was also killed in the same attack.
The Palestinian television channel accused Israel on Thursday of carrying out a “deliberate murder” of the journalist and his family members.
The IDF denies
The Israeli military, the IDF, announces that they do not know that their forces were at the place where the journalist Hattab and his family were killed.
“Based on a review of operations in the area, the IDF is not aware of any military activity conducted by our forces in the vicinity of the location in question,” it said in a statement to CNN on Saturday.
Hattab’s death has sent a shock wave through the newsroom he worked at.
“Our colleague Mohammed Abu Hatab fell as a martyr along with members of his family in an Israeli bombardment against his home in Khan Younis,” the television station said in a statement to the Wafa news agency.
The journalist in live broadcast: “We die one by one”
Palestinian TV journalist Salman Al Bashir breaks down when he is reached by the news of his colleague.
– We can’t handle this anymore. We are exhausted, we are victims and martyrs awaiting our death. We are dying one by one and no one cares about us or the large-scale disaster and crime in Gaza, he said.
Furthermore, he chose to emphasize how unprotected journalists covering the deadly war actually are.
– No protection here, no international protection at all, no immunity to anything. This protective gear I’m wearing doesn’t protect us, Al Bashir continued, as he removed his helmet and vest.
“Our colleague was here 30 minutes ago”
With tears in his throat, he continued.
– Our colleague was here just 30 minutes ago, and now he has left us, together with his wife, brother and many family members.
At least 9,488 people have so far been killed in the Gaza Strip since terror-labeled Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, according to data from the Hamas-run health authority in the area.
Of them, 33 are journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).