1 of 2 | Mourners, colleagues and fellow journalists examine a tattered press jacket that surrounded the body of Al-Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul, killed along with his cameraman Rami Al-Refee, in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday. Photo by Hossam Azzam/UPI | License Photo
July 31 (UPI) — Israel Defense Forces allegedly targeted a reporter and cameraman working for Al Jazeera west of Gaza City on Wednesday.
Ismail Al-Ghoul and Rami Al-Rifa, both 27, died when a single missile launched by an IDF drone struck the car in which they were driving while at the Shati refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported.
They were abiding an evacuation order issued by the IDF just before a missile killed them.
The two men were reporting near the house of former Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated early Wednesday in Tehran. Both Iran and Hamas have blamed the IDF, which has yet to comment on the attack.
The two Al Jazeera staffers were wearing vests that identified them as media and were traveling in a car with marking identifying it as a media vehicle.
The pair had contacted the Al Jazeera news desk about 15 minutes prior to the missile strike that killed them, according to Al Jazeera.
They were traveling to the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital when the missile strike killed them.
Officials for the Al Jazeera Media Network called the airstrike a “targeted assassination” and said the news outlet would “pursue all legal actions to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists has demanded an explanation from the IDF.
“Journalists are civilians and should never be targeted,” CPJ Chief Executive Officer Jodie Ginsberg said. “Israel must explain why two more Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in what appears to be a direct strike.”
The IDF previously arrested Al-Ghoul at the Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza and has killed at least seven journalists and media personnel, the CPJ said.
A reporter who had been working with the two men earlier in the day told CNN he was about 300 meters away from the vehicle when a single missile struck it and killed the two journalists.
The IDF on June 9 rescued three hostages who were held at the home of a Gaza journalist who previously contributed to Al Jazeera.
The journalist was killed in the rescue, and Al Jazeera afterward denied the man worked for the media outlet and only had contributed a story in 2019.
Israeli officials in May temporarily shut down Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel and called the media outlet a “mouthpiece for Hamas.”
