Fresh grief swept through central Gaza as Al Jazeera moved to rebut Israeli claims that one of its slain journalists was a Hamas operative, while relatives and colleagues gathered to mourn the cameraman’s death.
The Qatar-based broadcaster said in a statement that it “condemns the Israeli occupation army’s baseless accusations, which seek to justify its crimes against Al Jazeera journalists and cameramen in Gaza, most recently the killing of cameraman Ahmed Wishah”.
Late yesterday, the Israeli military said Mr Wishah died in a “precise strike” that also killed two other Hamas militants, alleging he had served as a Hamas “sniper operative”.
“Alongside his work as an Al Jazeera photojournalist in recent years, Mr Wishah was an operative in Hamas’ military wing,” the military said.
The Israeli military provided no evidence to support the accusations.
In Deir el-Balah, AFP footage from central Gaza showed mourners surrounding Mr Wishah’s lifeless body inside the area’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, where friends and family wept over the loss.
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Bilal Abu Samak, a freelance journalist in Gaza, said news of the killing left him “in shock”.
“For the first time, I found myself unable to film. The occupation deliberately kills journalists and anyone covering events on the ground,” Mr Samak added.
Al Jazeera said it has faced what it described as an “Israeli campaign of incitement” that has “relentlessly spread false allegations and baseless accusations against Al Jazeera staff”.
It characterised the effort as a “smear campaign” and “a transparent and futile attempt to justify the deliberate targeting of journalists and cameramen”.
“These attempts deceive no one,” the network added.
Yesterday, Al Jazeera reported that Mr Wishah was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the Bureij refugee camp.
The network has also noted a previous loss in the same family: Ahmed Wishah’s brother, Mohammed Wishah, who was also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed by Israeli shelling in April, the Qatari broadcaster said at the time.
Reporters Without Borders, a media rights group, says Israeli forces have killed more than 220 journalists since the war in Gaza erupted, with at least 70 of them killed in the context of their professional duties.
The Israeli military has said it does not deliberately target journalists.
