“Israeli” Strikes Martyr 249th Journalist in Gaza Amid Ongoing Assault on Press

By Staff, Agencies

Another journalist has been killed in the Gaza Strip by “Israeli” forces, bringing the total number of media professionals martyred since October 2023 to at least 249, according to local sources.

The ongoing war, widely condemned as a campaign of genocide, continues to claim the lives of civilians and journalists alike.

The latest victim was Ayman Haniyeh, a broadcast engineer working with the Iraq-based Al-Manara Media Company.

He was martyred near the Jordanian Hospital in Gaza City — an area that has been under intensified “Israeli” bombardment in recent days.

The assault is part of what appears to be a full-scale effort by “Israeli” forces to take control of Gaza City, which currently shelters around a million Palestinians displaced from elsewhere in the Strip.

Haniyeh had just attended the funeral of fellow journalist Rasmi Jihad Salem, a cameraman for Iran’s Al-Alam TV network, who was also martyred earlier the same day in a separate “Israeli” attack.

In response, Gaza’s government media office accused “Israel” of a “systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists,” holding not only “Israel” but also its major backers — the US, UK, Germany, and France — accountable for the continuing violence.

The office urged international organizations to denounce these actions and provide protection for journalists operating in conflict zones.

This latest wave of killings follows a string of targeted strikes by “Israeli” forces, including an attack last week that martyred at least 20 people — five of them journalists — near a hospital in southern Gaza.

Not long before that, Al Jazeera’s Gaza media team suffered a devastating blow when “Israeli” strikes killed five of its staff, including the renowned journalist Anas Al-Sharif.

These journalists are among the more than 63,500 people martyred during the ongoing war in Gaza — a staggering toll, the majority of whom have been women and children.