International Desk

A TV channel affiliated with a Palestinian armed group said five of its journalists were killed Thursday in an Israeli strike on their vehicle in Gaza, with the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists claiming the reported attack was “devastating.”

A missile hit the journalists' broadcast truck parked in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza while they were performing their journalistic and humanitarian duty, according to a statement from their employer, Al-Quds Today Television and the hospital authorities.

Footage of the aftermath seen by CNN shows the vehicle in flames with the words “TV” and “PRESS” in large letters visible on the back doors. Another video seen by CNN shows it completely engulfed by flames.

The Israeli military confirmed it carried out the strike on what it said was an “Islamic Jihad terrorist cell inside in the area of Nuseirat,” but did not provide any proof for its allegations.

Islamic Jihad fighters have fought alongside Hamas in the Gaza Strip and took part in the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.

The channel identified the five staffers as Faisal Abu Al-Qumsan, Ayman Al-Jadi, Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed Al-Lada'a.

"We affirm our commitment to continue our resistant media message," it added.

The Israeli military said that "prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians".

Witnesses in Nuseirat told AFP that a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft hit the broadcast vehicle, which was parked outside Al-Awda Hospital, setting the vehicle on fire and killing those inside.

The Committee to Protect Journalists' Middle East arm said the organisation was "devastated by the reports that five journalists and media workers were killed inside their broadcasting vehicle by an Israeli strike".

"Journalists are civilians and must always be protected," it added in a statement posted on social media and seen by AFP.

Of those killed, 133 were Palestinians in Gaza, who “face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict,” it said, according to CNN.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said last week that more than 190 journalists had been killed and at least 400 injured since the start of the war in Gaza.

It was triggered by the Hamas-led 7 October attack last year, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,361 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the UN considers reliable.