Journalist Burned Alive in Tent Strike Among Scores of Gazans Killed by Israeli Forces

Scores of Palestinians have been killed by Israel Defense Forces' bombing of the Gaza Strip since Sunday, including numerous children as well as a journalist who was burned alive in a Monday strike targeting a tent full of sleeping journalists.

The IDF strike on the journalists' tent outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza at approximately 2:00 am local time Monday killed Palestine Today reporter Hilmi al-Faqaawi and another man, identified as Yusuf Al-Khazandar, both of whom burned to death as helpless bystanders tried but were unable to rescue them from the flames.

Al Jazeerareported that nine other people—including journalists Hassan Eslaih, Ahmed al-Agha, Muhammad Fayek, Abdallah Al-Attar, Ihab al-Bardini, and Mahmoud Awad—were injured in the strike. Palestine's Quds News Networkpublished footage of the burning tent, as well as Eslaih and al-Bardini in the hospital, the latter suffering from wounds to his head caused by shrapnel, a fragment of which pierced one of his eyes.

"The international community's failure to act has allowed these attacks on the press to continue with impunity."

The IDF said it carried out the strike in a bid to assassinate Eslaih, whom it accused of being a member of Hamas' Khan Younis Brigade posing as a journalist, partly because of his on-the-ground coverage of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Eslaih, who previously worked for The Associated Press and CNN, had repeatedly been threatened by Israel amid his tireless coverage of its annihilation of Gaza.

The latest attack on journalists by Israel—which has killed well over 200 media professionals since October 2023—drew global condemnation and calls for U.S. corporate media to give more coverage to Israeli targeting of media professionals.

"This is not the first time Israel has targeted a tent sheltering journalists in Gaza. The international community's failure to act has allowed these attacks on the press to continue with impunity, undermining efforts to hold perpetrators accountable," said Sara Qudah, the Middle East and North Africa director at the Committee to Protect Journalists. "CPJ calls on authorities to allow the injured, some of whom have sustained severe burns, to be evacuated immediately for treatment and to stop attacking Gaza’s already devastated press corps."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement, "We call on all U.S. media outlets to air the video of journalists burning alive in their media tent after the Israeli government's bombing."

"Journalists must be the first in line to expose the intentional mass murder of fellow journalists, and the American people must be able to see the horror perpetrated in Gaza with American weapons and taxpayer dollars," CAIR added. "We call on every state and national association of journalists to condemn the Israeli government's bombing of a media tent in Gaza and express solidarity with the Palestinian journalists facing targeted assassination for just doing their jobs."

Antoinette Lattouf, a prolific Australian journalist, wrote on the Bluesky social network: "I feel physically ill. How are images of Palestinian journalists being burned alive not top story on every news site? This is after we watched the execution of paramedics. How many more Israeli war crimes do we need to witness? Or have we accepted our institutions and their so-called values are a lie?"

Monday's strikes followed Sunday bombing that killed dozens of Palestinians, including strikes on the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City that reportedly left 11 Palestinians, including nine children, dead and many others wounded. Other deadly IDF air and artillery strikes were also reported in cities including Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah. These attacks included an airstrike on a community kitchen in Khan Younis that killed seven people, at least three of whom were reportedly children.

Since October 2023, Israel's bombing, invasion, and "complete siege" of Gaza have left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Israel's policies and practices in the war are the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case brought by South Africa and backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs.

Additionally, nearly everyone in Gaza has been forcibly displaced, sometimes multiple times, as Israeli forces move to seize large tracts of the Gaza Strip for a so-called "security zone" and Jewish recolonization. Israeli officials claim this ethnic cleansing is being carried out in coordination with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has walked back some of his earlier comments asserting that the United States would "take over" Gaza, empty it of Palestinians, and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" in the Mediterranean enclave.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the United States from Hungary for talks with Trump and others on topics including Gaza, the hostages held by Hamas, Iran policy, and the 17% tariff Trump imposed on Israel last week, even though the country—which counts the U.S. as its biggest trade partner—lifted all levies on American imports in a bid to avert the move.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported that Netanyahu's aircraft deviated from the normal Budapest-Washington, D.C. route by about 250 miles (400 km) to avoid the airspace of the Netherlands, Ireland, and Iceland, which officials feared could enforce arrest warrants issued last year by the International Criminal Court against the prime minister for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including using starvation as a weapon of war. Far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Trump have both rejected the warrants, and the latter has sanctioned the ICC.