Israel’s twin strike on the Nasser hospital in Gaza, which killed five journalists including staff working for the Associated Press, Reuters, and Al Jazeera, is a potential violation of international law writ large.
The attack targeted a civilian building, specifically a hospital, in a reckless double-tap strike that killed civilians, with rescue workers and journalists among them. All categories that should be protected under international law.
While the Israel Defense Forces, which have killed about 200 journalists already in the Gaza war, immediately attempted to suggest the killing of civilians had been in error, the reality is that it appears to be policy and not a mistake.
What is striking about this incident is that each individual element – the targeting of a working hospital, of journalists and rescue workers, of civilian injured already under treatment – would be expected to draw accusations of a war crime in its own right.
Taken together it points to something far darker, a “horrific” incident in the words of the British foreign secretary, David Lammy.
As well as the 20 killed in the strikes, another 50 were injured according to the head of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, including patients who were already critically ill.
“While people in Gaza are being starved, their already limited access to health care is being further crippled by repeated attacks,” Ghebreyesus said on X. “We cannot say it loudly enough: STOP attacks on health care. Ceasefire now!”
Explicitly linking the issues, the UN human rights office spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani, said in a statement: “The killing of journalists in Gaza should shock the world – not into stunned silence but into action, demanding accountability and justice. Journalists are not a target. Hospitals are not a target.”
It has been well documented how Israel has targeted hospitals and medical staff, who have been killed, wounded and abducted, on multiple occasions. But the reckless double-tap strike, where the IDF attacks a location for a second time as rescue workers and other civilians arrive, say critics, is an increasingly common tactic.
A joint investigation in July by the Israeli +972 Magazine and Local Call reported that the IDF now routinely carried out additional attacks in the area of an initial bombing, sometimes intentionally killing paramedics and others involved in rescue efforts.
“If there’s a strike on a senior commander, another one will be carried out afterward to ensure rescue efforts don’t take place,” said one of +972’s sources who it said was present in an Israeli attack planning cell. “First responders, rescue teams – they kill them. They strike again, on top of them.”
While the IDF said it had launched an investigation into the attack, adding that its forces “in no way direct strikes at journalists”, Israeli officials’ own public remarks reveal that to be a lie. The claim is directly contradicted by Israel’s own statement after the killing of Anas al-Sharif, a well-known Al Jazeera journalist, and four colleagues – again in the grounds of a hospital – earlier this month when it claimed without providing credible evidence that Sharif was targeted as a member of a Hamas cell.
As the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement after Sharif’s killing by Israel: “The IDF have made unsubstantiated claims that many of the journalists they deliberately killed in Gaza were terrorists, including four Al Jazeera staff – Hamza al-Dahdouh, Ismail al-Ghoul, Rami al-Refee, and Hossam Shabat. CPJ classifies such cases as murder.”
Indeed, before Sharif’s death, the CPJ publicly warned that his life was in danger after credible threats were made by a named Israeli military spokesperson. “We are deeply alarmed by the repeated threats made by Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee against Al Jazeera’s Gaza correspondent Anas al-Sharif and call on the international community to protect him,” said the CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.
“This is not the first time Sharif has been targeted by the Israeli military, but the danger to his life is now acute. Israel has killed at least six Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza during this war. These latest unfounded accusations represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill Sharif.”
And it is significant that Israel has killed journalists in the vicinity of hospitals. Since the beginning of the war, journalists have often stayed near hospitals in the hope they might provide a slight degree of protection, and because they often have at least some electricity where media can charge phones and equipment.
For some senior UN figures, the only conclusion to be drawn from these attacks is that Israel is killing the world’s only available witnesses to the starvation it has visited on Gaza through its policies.
Among them on Monday was the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinians, Philippe Lazzarini, as he condemned the “shocking” global inaction over Gaza, accusing Israel of “silencing the last remaining voices reporting about children dying silently amid famine”.
That sentiment was echoed in the strongest terms by the emergency coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières in Gaza, Jerome Grimaud, mourning the death of the journalist Mariam Dagga, who had worked with the humanitarian organisation.
“For the past 22 months, we have watched as healthcare facilities have been levelled, journalists silenced, and healthcare workers buried beneath the rubble by the Israeli forces. As Israel continues to shun international law, the only witnesses of their genocidal campaign are deliberately being targeted. It must stop now.”
• This article was amended on 26 August 2025. Initial reporting said one of the five journalists killed worked for NBC. This is not the case and the reference has been removed.
