Israeli strike kills Al Jazeera photojournalist on one year anniversary of colleague’s death

By Abeer Salman, Hira Humayun and Kareem Khadder, CNN

(CNN) — An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed an Al Jazeera photojournalist on Sunday – exactly one year to the day after an attack killed one of his colleagues.

Ahmad Al-Louh, 39, and four other people were killed by the strike that targeted an office of the Civil Defense service in central Gaza’s Nuseirat Camp area, according to Al Awda Hospital, which treated the casualties.

Al Jazeera has condemned the attack, saying Al-Louh was “brutally killed” while covering the service’s attempt to rescue a family that had been severely injured in an earlier bombing.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had targeted the Civil Defense offices in a “precise strike,” claiming the site was being used as a “command-and-control center” by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who were planning an “imminent terror attack against IDF troops.”

It said Al-Louh was among those killed in the strike and alleged he was a “terrorist” who had previously served with Islamic Jihad. The IDF did not provide any proof for their allegations.

In late July, an IDF strike killed Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul, who it accused of being a Hamas member – an allegation the network slammed as “baseless.”

CNN has reached out to Al Jazeera about the IDF’s allegations about Al-Louh.

CNN footage shows ambulances taking the casualties to the hospital. Some of them are still wearing civil defense vests. It shows one motionless body being carried on a blanket being used as a makeshift stretcher. It also shows Al-Louh’s body on the floor, press vest draped over him, as people surround him. His brother Sajed leans over Al-Louh crying, “Hamada! Oh God,” addressing his deceased brother by nickname.

According to the hospital, the other people killed in the strike were three Civil Defense workers and one civilian.

A spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense strongly denied the IDF’s claim of a terrorist presence at the site.

“These teams work around the clock to rescue people. Everyone knows that the Civil Defense organization is a humanitarian body that provides services during both peace and war to civilians and has no political involvement. The team was directly targeted,” said Zaki Imad Eddine.

This ‘follows a pattern’: Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera, which has in the past accused Israel of systematically targeting its journalists – a charge Israel denies, described Al-Louh’s killing as a crime and said it followed a pattern of attacks in which its workers had been killed or injured by Israeli attacks.

It noted that Al-Louh’s death coincided with the first anniversary of the killing of one of its cameramen, Samer Abu Daqqa, who died on December 15, 2023, after sustaining injuries in an Israeli attack on southern Gaza.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Abu Daqqa was the first Al Jazeera journalist to have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war since the October 7 terror attack of 2023. Since then, a string of other journalists with the network have been killed or injured in Gaza, in disputed circumstances.

On Sunday, Al Jazeera extended its condolences to Al-Louh’s wife and family, adding that just days earlier an Israeli strike had destroyed his house in the Da’wa neighborhood of Nuseirat Camp.

The network also said it was committed to pursuing “all legal measures to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes against journalists” and urged international legal institutions to take “urgent measures” to hold the Israeli authorities to account and “to put an end to the targeting and killing of journalists.”

Israel’s military has in the past said it “takes all operationally feasible measures to protect both civilians and journalists” and that it “has never and will never deliberately target journalists.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists says the Israel-Gaza war has killed more journalists in a year than any other conflict the group has documented. At least 137 journalists have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon since the war began, according to the CPJ, making it the deadliest period for journalists since it began collecting data in 1992. Of those killed, 129 were Palestinian. According to Gaza’s government media office, at least 196 journalists have been killed.

Mohammad Al Sawalhi, a stringer for CNN in Gaza, said Al-Louh was well-known among journalists in Gaza and was often embedded with the Civil Defense in his capacity as a journalist, covering rescue missions.

“He was a very fun person to be with, he always tried to help everyone and bring joy to everyone’s face,” Al Sawalhi said.

“He had a great relationship with all journalists, helping them all because he knew central Gaza very well.”

Dozens killed across Gaza

Al-Louh was just one of dozens of people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza on Sunday.

At least 15 people were killed early Sunday when an Israeli airstrike hit a school sheltering displaced people in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, according to the Civil Defense.

Eyewitnesses reported 10 to 15 charred bodies after fires caused by “intensive Israeli bombing” at the Khalil Awida school, which was sheltering about 1,500 displaced people, the Civil Defense said.

The IDF said it had carried out a “targeted raid on a terrorist meeting point in the Beit Hanoun area.”

In Deir al Balah, a strike on tents killed four people and a strike on a family home east of Gaza city killed six, according to the Civil Defense.

Meanwhile in the south, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said 12 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a UN school compound.

The Israeli military said it carried out the strike, claiming there was a Hamas “command and control center embedded” within the compound.

Videos of the aftermath seen by CNN show chaotic scenes as people search through the destruction, with a fire still burning. A man is sitting on the floor, screaming and wailing over what appear to be covered bodies, some quite small.

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Eugenia Yosef, Ibrahim Dahman and Mike Schwartz contributed to this report.