Three journalists among 11 killed as Israeli strikes hit central Gaza

# Three journalists among 11 killed as Israeli strikes hit central Gaza

At least 11 Palestinians, including two children and three journalists, were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza after dawn on Wednesday, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

The dead included photojournalists Anas Ghunaim, Abdul Ra’ouf Shaath and Mohammad Qeshta, who were working for the Egyptian Committee for Gaza Relief, an organisation that supervises Egyptian aid efforts in the territory. Munir al-Bursh, the ministry’s director-general, said the men were hit when their vehicle was struck in central Gaza near the Netzarim Corridor. Colleagues and medical officials told Al Jazeera that they were documenting activity around a newly established displacement camp.

A fourth person also died in the same strike, according to an Al Jazeera team on the ground. Video shared online showed a burned-out vehicle by the roadside with smoke still visible from the wreckage. Mohammed Mansour, spokesman for the Egyptian committee, told AP that the journalists were filming a new camp and said the vehicle was known to the Israeli military as belonging to the committee.

Israeli Army Radio, citing an Israeli security source, said the air force targeted a vehicle in central Gaza and claimed its occupants were using a drone to gather intelligence on army forces. That account could not be independently verified in the evidence packet.

Other killings were reported in separate attacks. Sources at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital told Al Jazeera that three members of one family, including a child, were killed in eastern Deir el-Balah. In southern Gaza, an Israeli soldier shot and killed a 13-year-old boy in the town of Bani Suheila, according to an Al Jazeera team on the ground and AP, which quoted hospital staff saying he was collecting firewood. A 32-year-old woman was also killed near Khan Younis, and two more Palestinians were reported dead in the north by the Wafa news agency.

The strikes came against the backdrop of repeated ceasefire violations since the US-brokered truce took effect on October 10, Palestinian officials said. They also come as Gaza faces severe shortages of food, medicine and shelter materials, with about 2.2 million people in acute humanitarian need in winter conditions.

The day’s violence once again placed journalists among the dead in a conflict that has been exceptionally dangerous for the press. It also showed how fragile the ceasefire remains, with competing accounts over the strikes and no immediate sign of a durable halt to the killings. Even as officials described a vehicle strike in military terms, the human toll was already spreading across multiple locations in central and southern Gaza.

For Gaza’s health authorities, the strike count was one more sign that the fighting has not stopped, only changed shape. For the families of the dead, including those of the three journalists, the day ended with another round of funerals, hospital corridors and unanswered questions.