A double Israeli strike on one of the last hospitals in southern Gaza has killed five journalists, including a reporter with The Independent’s partner publication Independent Arabia.
Maryam Abu Daqqa, 33, who worked for Independent Arabia and Associated Press, was killed alongside Al Jazeera camera operator Mohammed Salam, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, and freelance journalist Moaz Abu Taha.
Ahmed Abu Aziz, who worked for UK-based media outlet Middle East Eye, later died from his injuries, the organisation said.
Independent Arabia said it “mourns its courageous correspondent” Abu Daqqa, who left behind an 11-year-old son, saying she worked around the clock to cover the horrors unfolding in the besieged Gaza Strip. The publication also condemned Israel’s “flagrant violation of international laws that guarantee the protection of journalists”.
Israel claimed an inquiry had been opened into the strike, with the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israel regretted what he sought to claim was a “tragic mishap”.
The photojournalist was among 20 people killed, and 50 injured on Monday in what witnesses described to The Independent as two missiles in quick succession slamming into the Nasser Medical Complex – the only partially functioning public hospital in the south of Gaza.
Rights groups and the United Nations have repeatedly accused Israel of targeting medical facilities and Palestinian journalists since it launched its unprecedented bombardment of Gaza in October 2023. More than 240 journalists have been killed since then – including five journalists just two weeks ago – according to rights group Amnesty International, making this the bloodiest conflict for reporters in modern history.
“We were shocked there was strikes hitting the fourth floor of the main surgical building. The journalists use that side to do their interviews or to broadcast from the area,” Khaled al-Serr, a leading Palestinian surgeon at Nasser Hospital, told The Independent. He said first responders, medics and journalists rushed to the scene to help the injured and killed.
“During the evacuation, while we were standing in front of the building and starting the work receiving cases to the emergency department, we were surprised by another bombing at the same spot.”
“Until now, the treatment process is continuing, we cannot confirm the numbers,” he added.
Mohammed al-Qudra, 28, who also witnessed the attack, said the quick succession of missiles “resulted in a massive massacre”.
“The scene was terrifying,” he said, still shaken. “The area was a pool of blood, and the entire staircase of the building was covered in blood, from top to bottom.”
The Israeli military declined to comment to The Independent when asked why it launched a double strike on a hospital, a protected building, and did not acknowledge that it had killed journalists and first responders as they were tending to the injured. Instead, in a public statement, Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani confirmed Israeli troops carried out a strike in the area of the hospital and added that the country’s chief of staff had instructed an initial inquiry “as soon as possible”.
He said the Israeli military does not target journalists and that the Israeli military “acts to mitigate harm to uninvolved individuals”. Mr Netanyahu later said that Israel valued the work of journalists and medical staff, adding that Israel’s war was with Hamas.
But the United Nations says that strikes have killed at least 247 Palestinian journalists in Gaza since Israel launched its unprecedented assault in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel. International correspondents are barred from entering the tiny strip by Israel, except on heavily controlled Israeli military embeds.
Questioned by reporters at the White House, US president Donald Trump said he had not yet received news of the strike but added: “I’m not happy about it. I don’t want to see it.”
He said, “at the same time, we have to end that whole nightmare in Gaza, where Hamas is holding hostages seized in Israel.”
The United Nations’ humanitarian office (OCHA) said on Monday that Palestinian journalists are “the eyes and ears of the international community” and must be protected. The deliberate targeting and killing of journalists and medics constitutes war crimes under international humanitarian law.
“The killing of journalists in Gaza should shock the world – not into stunned silence but into action, demanding accountability and justice,” said UN rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani. “Their killings, and those of countless other civilians, must be independently, promptly investigated and justice must follow.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists has repeatedly said the Israeli military has deliberately targeted Palestinian journalists and their families, including levelling unfounded accusations against them to “manufacture consent to kill” them and silence them.
“Israel’s broadcasted killing of journalists in Gaza continues while the world watches and fails to act firmly on the most horrific attacks the press has ever faced in recent history,” said CPJ’s regional director Sara Qudah after Monday’s strike. “These murders must end now. The perpetrators must no longer be allowed to act with impunity.”
There are concerns the death toll among journalists will only rise as Netanyahu pushes ahead with plans to take Gaza City, which will also involve pushing the population south where Monday’s strike happened.
Abu Daqqa had worked with Independent Arabia since its inception in 2019 and freelanced with AP and Doctors Without Borders.
MSF “denounced in the strongest possible terms” Israel’s deliberate targeting of journalists and health workers on Monday and said it was “heartbroken” by Mariam’s death.
“Maryam leaves behind a son who must now grow up without his mother,” said Jerome Grimaud, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza.
“As Israel continues to shun international law, the only witnesses of their genocidal campaign are deliberately being targeted. It must stop now.”
Abu Daqqa’s family told Independent Arabia she feared she might be killed as Israel had ramped up its attacks on reporters in Gaza, killing five journalists, including Al Jazeera’s star correspondent Anas al-Sharif, just two weeks ago in a targeted strike that Israel celebrated as a strike on a militant.
In fact, she had left a heartbreaking note in her tent with a friend for her son, whom she had made sure was evacuated to the UAE.
In the note, which was shared with The Independent, she told him to pray for her but “not to weep”.
“Make me proud,” she wrote, adding: “You are my love, my heart, my strength, my soul, and my son who lifts my head high with pride.”
Speaking to Independent Arabia after the bombing in Khan Younis, Abu Daqqa’s father Riyad, who had received a kidney from his daughter, said she was “beloved by everyone”.
“This is a loss, not just for me, but for all of Gaza because she was so beloved.”
Abu Daqqa’s friends told The Independent she had even turned down an opportunity to travel to the UAE to be with her son, as she wanted to keep documenting the war and looking after her parents.
Fellow reporter Mohammed Abu Shahma, from Khan Younis, said that along with donating her kidney to her father, she had desperately tried to get treatment for her mother, who died from cancer four months ago, as there was no way to secure proper care in Gaza.
“Maryam is known for being a neutral and professional journalist, whose goal is to convey both the image and the word.”
“She is remarkable,” he added, his voice cracking with emotion.
Reuters also mourned its loss, saying it was “devastated” to learn of the killing of its cameraman Al-Masri, and the injury of photographer Hatem Khaled, also a contractor who it has asked to be evacuated.
AP said it, too, was “shocked”.
“We are doing everything we can to keep our journalists in Gaza safe as they continue to provide crucial eyewitness reporting in difficult and dangerous conditions,” the agency said.
Al Jazeera said that the blood of its journalists killed just 10 days ago “has not yet dried” before another colleague was killed. “Despite relentless targeting, Al Jazeera remains resolute in providing live coverage ... with occupation authorities barring international media outlets from entering to report on the war.”
Ten Al Jazeera journalists have been killed by Israel in Gaza.
