Headline

Two Gaza Journalists Killed In Israeli Strike

Published

1 year ago

January 7, 2024

Al Jazeera on Sunday said two of its Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip were killed in an Israeli strike on their car, in what the Qatar-based media network claimed was a “targeted killing”.

Hamza Wael Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria, who also worked as a video stringer for AFP and other news organisations, were killed while they were “on their way to carry out their duty” for the channel in the Gaza Strip, the network said.

A third freelance journalist travelling with them, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza also confirmed the deaths and blamed an Israeli strike.

Witnesses told AFP that two rockets were fired at the car — one hit the front of the vehicle and the other hit Hamza who was in sitting next to the driver.

“We later found the body parts (of those in the car). The ambulance then came and carried those who were in the car,” a witness, who declined to give his name for security reasons, told AFP.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the journalists’ deaths was an “unimaginable tragedy”.

“And that’s also been the case for… far too many innocent Palestinian men, women and children,” he said in Doha, as part of a new regional tour.

AFP video footage showed a crowd of people inspecting the car’s mangled remains, while pools of blood lay on the road. No other damage was visible in the area.

Al Jazeera “strongly condemns the Israeli occupation forces’ targeting of the Palestinian journalists’ car,” the company said in a statement, accusing Israel of “targeting” journalists and “violating the principles of freedom of the press”.

Several hours after the strike, the Israeli army had not replied to AFP’s request for a comment.

Hamza’s father Wael al-Dahdouh is Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief who was recently wounded in a strike himself after his wife and two other children were killed in Israeli bombardment in the initial weeks of the war.

“Hamza was everything for me … while we are full of humanity they (Israel) are full of murder and hatred,” Dahdouh said on Al Jazeera television.

– ‘What did my family do?’ –

AFP’s global news director Phil Chetwynd said the agency was “shocked” by Mustafa’s death and its thoughts were with his family.

“We vigorously condemn all attacks against journalists doing their jobs and it is essential we have a clear explanation as to what happened,” Chetwynd added.

Crowds of people gathered later Sunday at the funeral where a tearful Dahdouh was seen kissing the hand of his dead son.

“The world should see with two eyes, not with an Israeli eye. They should see everything happening to the Palestinian people,” Dahdouh said.

“What did Hamza do to them (Israelis)? What did my family do to them? What did the civilians do to them? They did nothing to them, but the world closes its eyes to what’s happening in the Gaza Strip.”

Wael Dahdouh was wounded in an Israeli strike in December that also killed Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa. The Qatar-based channel has lost three journalists since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.

Thuria, in his 30s, had worked with AFP since 2019 and had also worked with other international media outlets.

Thuria and Hamza had been tasked with filming the aftermath of a strike on a house in Rafah and their car was hit while they were on their way back, AFP correspondents said.

The war erupted when Hamas militants stormed across Gaza’s border into Israel in an unprecedented attack which left some 1,140 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas, denounced as a terrorist group by the US and EU, and has kept up a relentless bombing of Gaza, which the Hamas-run health ministry says has killed 22,835 people, mostly civilians.

“We are in shock,” Christophe Deloire of the media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders wrote Sunday on X, formerly Twitter, calling the situation a “never-ending slaughter”.

In May 2022, Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran Palestinian journalist working for Al Jazeera, was killed while covering an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli army later admitted one of its soldiers probably shot the reporter — who was wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest marked “Press” — having mistaken her for a militant.
VANGUARD

Headline

Family Of Five Killed In Iranian Missile Strike After Fleeing Ukraine For Safety In Israel

Published

12 hours ago

June 28, 2025

Editor

A Ukrainian family of five who fled Russia’s war in search of safety were killed in Israel by an Iranian missile — the very conflict they thought they had escaped.

Mariia Pieshkurova had brought her 7-year-old daughter, Anastasiia, to Bat Yam, a suburb of Tel Aviv, hoping to get lifesaving cancer treatment and refuge from the violence at home.

Along with Anastasiia’s grandmother, Olena Sokolova, and two young cousins, Illia and Kostiantyn, they had started over — believing they were finally safe.

But on June 15, an Iranian missile tore through their apartment building during a retaliatory strike on Israel, killing them all.

“I really thought they’d be safe,” said Artem Buryk, Anastasiia’s father and Mariia’s former partner. “I never thought they’d go to Israel to escape war — and find it there.”

The missile attack, part of Iran’s response to Israeli airstrikes on its territory, collapsed much of the building in Bat Yam.

It took four days to recover Mariia’s body from the rubble.

Their deaths marked a heartbreaking intersection of two wars — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Iran’s conflict with Israel — both of which had already tested the family’s will to survive.

Mariia had moved to Israel in late 2022 after Anastasiia was diagnosed with leukemia.

Ukraine’s hospitals were overwhelmed, and its largest children’s hospital was later destroyed in a missile strike.

In Israel, treatment began immediately. It was effective but costly. Mariia turned to Instagram, sharing photos of her daughter in treatment and videos of Artem pleading for help while serving on Ukraine’s front lines.

“Masha did everything for her little girl,” said Anastasiia’s godmother, Khrytsyna Chanysheva. “She dedicated her life to her, moved to Israel to get her full treatment.”

Despite the pain, Anastasiia always smiled at visitors.

“She was in pain, and she would close her eyes for a second,” said charity worker Lada Fichkovsi. “But every time I walked into her room, she would smile.”

Her cousins joined the family in May 2024 as the situation in Odesa deteriorated.

“The shelling made my children cry,” said Hanna Pieshkurova, Mariia’s sister. “I decided to let them go.”

Though Israel was at war with Hamas, Mariia had assured her sister that Bat Yam was calm. Air raid sirens were rare, and the Iron Dome defense system offered hope.

“Ukrainians often say, ‘This is not Ukraine, it’s not as scary,’” said Inna Bakhareva of Chance4Life, a charity helping sick children in Israel. “They felt secure due to the Iron Dome.”

That sense of security evaporated after Israel struck Iranian targets on June 12. Iran retaliated with missile attacks across Israeli cities.

“Dad, at night I saw how the missiles were falling,” Anastasiia told her father in a voice message the night before she died.

She and her mother had been scheduled to visit the hospital the next morning. The missile struck before dawn.

Mr. Buryk, who had just returned from the front lines near Sumy, received the news that same day.

“I still don’t understand what’s happening,” he said. “I still can’t believe it.”

He used to promise Anastasiia they’d go fishing together when peace returned.

“Every time I talked to her, I’d say, ‘Sweetheart, we’ll go fishing. Just us,’” he said. “And now I just don’t understand. I still don’t even grasp that she’s gone.”

“Last night,” he added quietly, “I sent her voice messages.”

(New York Times)

Headline

Militia Attack On DRC IDP Camp, Kills 10, Mostly Women, Children

Published

23 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

An armed group at the centre of a long-running ethnic conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northeast attacked a camp for displaced people on Friday, killing 10, local sources told AFP.

Bordering Uganda, Ituri province has for years been the scene of pitched battles between the Lendu, a group mainly made up of settled farmers, and the Hema people, typically nomadic herders.

The fighting has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians and the mass displacement of many more.

Friday’s assault on the Djangi displaced persons camp was carried out by the self-proclaimed Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco), a Lendu-aligned militia responsible for previous civilian massacres, the camp’s head told AFP.

“They were many and armed with firearms and machetes. They surprised us, they killed 10 displaced people, most of them women and children,” said Richard Likana.

An employee of the Red Cross, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed the attack, which took place around 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Bunia.

“They were cut up with machetes while others were shot,” the humanitarian worker added.

Congolese army Colonel Ruffin Mapela, the local administrator for Djugu territory where the camp is located, gave the same toll of 10 dead and put the number of injured at 15.

According to local and humanitarian sources, Codeco was responsible for an attack on February 10 which killed 51 people in Ituri province. Most of the victims were also displaced persons.

That raid was said to be a response to a strike by the rival Hema-led Zaire militia in the same area.

Violence between the Hema and Lendu killed thousands in gold-rich Ituri from 1999-2003, which only ended after European forces intervened.

The conflict erupted again in 2017, killing thousands more.

The violence has led to more than 1.5 million people leaving their homes, according to the UN.

AFP

Headline

Israel Wants Global Action Against Iran’s Nuclear Plans

Published

24 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

Israel’s foreign minister said on Friday that the world was obliged to stop Iran from developing an atomic bomb, days after Israel claimed it had “thwarted Iran’s nuclear project” in a 12-day war.

“Israel acted at the last possible moment against an imminent threat to itself, the region, and the international community,” Gideon Saar wrote on X.

“The international community must now prevent, by any effective means, the world’s most extreme regime from obtaining the most dangerous weapon.”

Israel and Iran each claimed victory in the war that ended with a ceasefire on June 24.

The conflict erupted on June 13 when Israel launched a bombing campaign, stating it aimed to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon—an ambition Iran has consistently denied.

Following waves of Israeli attacks on nuclear and military sites, the United States bombed three key facilities, with President Donald Trump insisting it had set Iran’s nuclear programme back by “decades”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an address to the nation after the ceasefire, announced that “we have thwarted Iran’s nuclear project”.

However, there is no consensus as to how effective the strikes were.
On Friday, Iran rejected a request by UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi to visit the bombed facilities, saying it suggested “malign intent”.

The comments from Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi came after parliament approved a bill suspending cooperation with the UN watchdog.

In a post on X following the move, Saar said Iran “continues to mislead the international community and actively works to prevent effective oversight of its nuclear programme”.