Israeli Strikes Kill Al Jazeera Cameraman Ahmed Wishah In Gaza, Officials Say

Israeli strikes in Gaza killed six people, including Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Wishah, and health officials and rescuers said at least one child was among the dead.

BBC reported that Al Jazeera said it "strongly condemns the heinous crime of targeting and killing" of its correspondent Ahmed Wishah, who was killed in a strike on a central Gaza home on Saturday.

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The BBC said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accused Wishah of being "a terrorist in Hamas' military wing who served as a sniper operative," and it said two other people killed with him were also accused by the IDF of being part of Hamas.

In Bureij refugee camp, the BBC said two other people were killed along with Wishah in the strike on the home, according to a local hospital and the Hamas-run civil defence agency, which conducts rescue operations.

The BBC also said that in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, four family members were killed in an overnight strike on a home, with Shifa Hospital telling news agencies it had received the bodies of the family, including two children.

Al Jazeera rejected Israeli accusations that Ahmed Wishah, killed in Gaza a day earlier, was a Hamas operative, as family and colleagues mourned the cameraman in the Palestinian territory.

Le Monde reported that Al Jazeera 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".

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Le Monde also said the Israeli military provided no evidence to support the accusations, while the Qatar-based network called the effort a "smear campaign" and "a transparent and futile attempt to justify the deliberate targeting of journalists and cameramen."

The BBC said Wishah's brother Mohamed, also an Al Jazeera correspondent, was killed in an Israeli strike in April, and it said the IDF accused him of working in Hamas rocket and weapons production headquarters without further details.

Le Monde added that AFP footage captured in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza showed friends and family grieving over Wishah's lifeless body in the area's Al-Aqsa Hospital, where he could be seen laid out on a steel tray in the hospital's morgue.

The BBC said Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures the UN regards as reliable, says the Israeli military has killed 1,007 people since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect last October.

The BBC reported that Tom Fletcher, head of the UN's humanitarian agency, told the UN Security Council this week that the share of households reported going to bed hungry had dropped from 92% to 36% since the ceasefire as more aid trucks entered, but he said 70% of the population still needs proper shelter.

Fletcher warned that essential services were "on the brink" and said Palestinians in Gaza remain deprived of "safety, shelter, clean water, healthcare, education," as the agreement also required Hamas to disarm and have no role in the governance of Gaza.

The BBC said the ceasefire also promised a flood of humanitarian aid into the territory, where the UN says around 81% of buildings were damaged, while aid groups said more help is needed.

Separately, the BBC said the latest conflict started when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage back to Gaza, and it said more than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza by Israeli military operations, the territory's health ministry says.