Israeli strikes and gunfire kill nine people in Gaza
Israeli attacks and gunfire in the Gaza Strip have killed at least nine people, including a child and a journalist from Al Jazeera.
Health officials said four Palestinians, including two women and a child, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in an apartment building in Gaza.
Medics said that the apartment was destroyed and many people were injured in the attack on the building in the Sabra district of Gaza City on Saturday.
The Israeli military said it shot one militant, without elaborating.
In a separate incident, Israeli forces shot and killed a woman in the town of Beit Lahiya further north, medics said.
At least one person was killed and eight others were injured in Israel’s air strike on Khan Younis in the south of the region.
Three people were killed in an Israeli airstrike later Saturday, medics said; including Ahmed Wishah, a journalist working for Al Jazeera, were in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera said cameraman Wishah was killed in what the channel described as a “heinous crime”, nearly two months after his brother Mohammed Wishah, also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed by the Israeli army.
“Al Jazeera Media Network condemns the deliberate killing of Al Jazeera Mubasher Channel cameraman Ahmed Wishah by Israeli occupation forces today, Saturday, June 20, during Israeli shelling targeting a house in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip,” Al Jazeera said. he said.
Al Jazeera said the latest killing brings to 12 the number of Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.
The ceasefire reached in October stopped major fighting between Hamas and Israel but did not end Israeli attacks.
The Palestinian Journalists Union on Saturday condemned Wishah’s killing and called for Israeli leaders to be held accountable for such attacks, which have killed nearly 300 Palestinian journalists since the war began in October 2023.
The Israeli army said in a statement that it killed a Hamas militant who posed a threat and was serving as an Al Jazeera photojournalist. He did not provide evidence. It was stated that Wishah served as a “sniper” and was killed along with two other Hamas militants.
He also accused his brother, whom he killed in April, of being a high-ranking Hamas armed operative. Hamas and Al Jazeera denied that Wishah had any links to the group.
Gaza’s health ministry said more than 1,010 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire. Militants killed four Israeli soldiers in Gaza during the same period.
Israel says its strikes are aimed at thwarting impending attacks by Hamas and other militants.
Israel and Hamas are deadlocked over how to proceed with the next phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, which involves Hamas disarming and Israel withdrawing.
Sources close to the talks said that no agreement had yet been reached in talks held by mediators Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and Trump’s Gaza Peace Board envoy Nickolay Mladenov on the implementation of the second phase of Trump’s Gaza plan.
Israel says Hamas must give up power in Gaza, be disarmed and play no role in the future governance of the region. Hamas attributes any complete disarmament to starting a political path towards the establishment of a Palestinian state.
