\n
In a statement on Thursday, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) described Ismail al-Ghoul as a \u201cHamas military wing operative and Nukhba terrorist\u201d – the assertion being he was part of an elite unit in the armed group.<\/p>\n
It alleged that as part of his role he \u201cinstructed other operatives on how to record operations and was actively involved in recording and publicising attacks against IDF troops\u201d. The IDF did not include Rami al-Rifi in its statement.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera called the accusation against its staff member \u201cbaseless\u201d and said it \u201chighlights Israel\u2019s long history of fabrications and false evidence used to cover up its heinous crimes\u201d. <\/p>\n
Ismail’s brother Jihad also told the BBC that his late sibling was strictly a civilian \u201cportraying the suffering of the Palestinian people inside Gaza City to the outside world\u201d.<\/p>\n
Based in Gaza City, the reporter had become a regular face on the Qatar-based TV channel, which is a popular news source in the region but has faced intense criticism from Israeli authorities.<\/p>\n
As Friday prayers in Gaza were dedicated to the late Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran, some Palestinians said they were also thinking about those who had been killed closer to home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am truly heartbroken about Ismail [al-Ghoul],\u201d commented Maha Sarsak, who has been displaced from Shujaiyeh to the centre of the strip. \u201cI was keeping up on the news in the north through him on social media. We didn\u2019t always have a TV, but we could hear his voice on the radio.\u201d<\/p>\n
Journalists in Gaza laid down their flak jackets at one gathering to honour al-Ghoul and al-Rifi this week.<\/p>\n
A friend of the pair said: \u201cThey hadn\u2019t been sleeping for days nor eating. They had even lost a lot of weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ismail al-Ghoul covered Israel\u2019s raid of Shifa Hospital in March and was arrested by the IDF at the site – but released after 12 hours without charge. Al Jazeera claimed this \u201cdebunks and refutes their false claim of his affiliation with any organisation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The two Al Jazeera journalists\u2019 last assignment had been gathering reaction to news of Haniyeh\u2019s death. Their car was targeted close to the Hamas leader\u2019s destroyed house in Shati Camp, an urban refugee camp.<\/p>\n
Israel has blocked international journalists from entering the Palestinian territory during the war, except on limited and highly controlled visits with the Israeli military. Prior to the closure of its Rafah border crossing with Gaza, Egypt also prevented reporters from entering.<\/p>\n
Over 10 months, many networks, including the BBC, have relied on local Palestinian staff for their on-the-ground news coverage and taken on new employees or freelancers.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera said that Ismail al-Ghoul had been working for the channel since November. It said that he had endured \u201chardships\u201d during the war including losing his father and brother.<\/p>\n
Other cameramen spoke of how al-Rifi had used his technical expertise to help them with their filming.<\/p>\n
After images of a dead Khaled al-Shawa, the boy killed in the strike, were widely publicised, the boy\u2019s mother put out a message on social media pleading for him to be remembered too.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy son is not an unidentified martyr,\u201d she said. \u201cWe must say the names of our martyrs. They should not talk about us as numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera, which broadcasts in English and Arabic, has recently seen a series of attacks against its staff in Gaza and their families.<\/p>\n
In late October, Wael Dahdouh, the network\u2019s well-known bureau chief, was reporting when he received word on-air that his wife, daughter, a son, and grandchild were killed in an Israeli airstrike.<\/p>\n
In December, he was injured in an attack that also killed another Al Jazeera cameraman, Samer Abudaqa.<\/p>\n
In January, a strike killed Mr Dahdouh\u2019s son, Hamza, and Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer, while they were working for Al Jazeera. The IDF later alleged the men were \u201cmembers of Gaza-based terrorist organizations”.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera has previously fiercely denied Israel\u2019s claims and accused it of systematically targeting its employees. <\/p>\n
The network has also condemned the decision by Israel\u2019s government in May to ban its broadcast in the country on accusations it harms national security. Last month, the ban was extended by the Tel Aviv District Court.<\/p>\n
The United Nations has called for a full investigation and accountability for the killings of the Al Jazeera journalists and others, saying that journalists everywhere must be protected.<\/p>\n
There are differing tallies of the number of media workers killed since the unprecedented, deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel that prompted the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
However, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, external<\/span>, the latest deaths in Gaza bring the number of journalists killed to 113, including 108 Palestinians, three Lebanese and two Israelis who were killed during the 7 October assault.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a statement on Thursday, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) described Ismail al-Ghoul as a \u201cHamas…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2013,295,2011,1632,342,2012],"class_list":["post-42313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","tag-claim","tag-israeli","tag-jazeera","tag-journalists","tag-killed","tag-rebuffs"],"yoast_head":"\n
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