Ramallah – Nisaa FM - 11/10/2023 The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) denounces the occupation’s crimes against defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip, including targeting, bombing, and destroying homes and residential buildings. It also denounces the occupation forces’ targeting of journalists, media institutions, and outlets in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the seventh of this month, to conceal the crimes committed against civilians there. This led to the martyrdom of three journalists, while the traces of two journalists (NIDAL AL-WAHIDI and HAITHAM ABDEL-WAHED) have been lost since the first day of the aggression, and their whereabouts have not been known yet.

According to what MADA field researcher reported, at around 2:30 am yesterday, Tuesday, both the journalist MUHAMMAD SOBH, who works as a photographer for the “Khabar” Agency, and the journalist SAEED AL-TAWEEL, who is the director of the “al- Khamisa” Agency, were killed immediately, while the journalist for the “Khabar” Agency, Hisham Al-Nawajha, was seriously injured and remained in intensive care until he was martyred yesterday morning.

The martyrdom of the three journalists came while covering the evacuation of the “Haji” building located on al- Mo’asasat Street in the Gaza Governorate and its complete destruction, which brings the number of martyred journalists during the current aggression on the Gaza Strip to five and raises the number of journalist martyrs since the year 2000 to 53 journalists.

The three journalists were targeted by a missile while they were fleeing from the “Haji” building while they were located 150 meters away from it. The building includes foreign media offices, including the APA office and the Al-Jazeera Network office.

On Monday, the occupation forces targeted the office of the French Agency in the Al-Haitham building with missiles, destroying it. They had also previously targeted the vicinity of the Palestine TV headquarters near the Islamic University in central Gaza City.

MADA Center holds the international community fully responsible for the lives of civilians and the lives of Palestinian journalists in the field in which they perform their work and expresses its deep concern about the continuation of the occupation’s crimes, and the escalation of its violations against journalists and media freedoms, which were only a link in a series of widespread and dangerous Israeli attacks against freedoms. Media in Palestine, its perpetrators were able to evade punishment for many years, which encouraged its continuation and continuity until today.