Significant damage to AFP's Gaza bureau, Israel says it struck nearby

The day after an explosion that seriously damaged AFP's Gaza office, the Israeli army, which has shelled the Palestinian territory for weeks, claimed Friday it carried out a strike "nearby" to the agency's bureau without having "in any way" targeted it.

AFP is the only one of the world's three major international news agencies currently operating a live video feed from Gaza City which has not been interrupted despite the damage, seen by an AFP employee Friday.

The unmanned AFP camera broadcasting live 24/7 captured the moment of the strike, a few minutes before midday (1000 GMT) on Thursday.

An AFP employee who visited the office on Friday said an explosive projectile appeared to have entered the technician's office in the bureau horizontally from east to west.

The strike destroyed the wall opposite the window and caused significant damage to the adjacent room and other doors. It also punctured water tanks on the roof.

An Israeli military spokesman initially said they had "checked (the report) multiple times".

"There was no IDF (Israel Defense Forces) strike on the building" in Gaza, he told AFP.

Following further questioning by AFP, the army said it had carried out a strike near the building.

"According to the current information we hold, it seems that there was a IDF strike near the building to eliminate an immediate threat," a spokesperson said in a statement.

"The building was not targeted in any way by the IDF and... we do not have any record of a missed target in that strike," the statement said.

"There was an IDF strike nearby that might have caused debris."

Images published by AFP on Friday showed a gaping hole in the wall of the 11-storey building in the west of Gaza's Rimal neighbourhood, near the port.

"AFP condemns in the strongest possible terms this strike on its Gaza City bureau," said Fabrice Fries, AFP chairman and chief executive.

"The location of this bureau is known to everyone and has been pointed out several times over the past few days, precisely to prevent such an attack and to allow us to continue to provide images on the ground.

"The consequences of such an attack would have been devastating if the AFP team on the ground had not evacuated the city," said Fries.

- 'Dangerous conditions' -

None of AFP's eight staff usually based in Gaza City were in the bureau at the moment of the strike.

The team was evacuated to southern Gaza on October 13, following an Israeli military order directed at residents in the north of the Hamas-run territory.

Asked about the attack during a news conference in Tel Aviv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that journalists in Gaza must be protected as they report on the war.

"It's vitally important how Israel does this (conducts the war), including with the highest regard for the protection of civilians, and that of course includes journalists," Blinken told reporters.

He said journalists were "doing extraordinary work under the most dangerous conditions to tell the story to the world".

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the incident and called on the authorities to release information about what it called an "attack".

"Journalists and media offices must be respected and protected," said the New-York based organisation's president Jodie Ginsberg.

"Targeting the media is a war crime," the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) wrote in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday.

"We condemn the attack and call for an immediate investigation," the organisation said, sharing a link to AFP's footage of the incident.

- Previous incident -

In May 2021, during a previous Hamas-Israel war, the Israeli military completely destroyed a 13-floor building which hosted the US agency Associated Press (AP) and Qatar's Al Jazeera.

Israel at the time said targeting the building was "perfectly legitimate" as it was based on information from its intelligence service.

The ongoing war erupted when Hamas militants crossed from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.

More than 9,200 people have been killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes unleashed to "crush" Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the health ministry in the Palestinian territory says.