Hamas says journalist killed in Gaza strike, Israel claims targeted militant

Hamas and rescuers said an Israeli strike on southern Gaza killed one journalist and wounded nine others on Monday, while the Israeli military reported it targeted a militant posing as a reporter.

The journalist is one of at least 12 people killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory on Monday, according to Gaza's civil defence agency, as the war entered its 19th month.

An air strike hit a tent used by journalists in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, killing two people, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Nine journalists were wounded in the strike, Bassal added.

The Hamas government media office said journalist Hilmi al-Faqaawi, who worked for a local news agency, was killed in the attack.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry called Faqaawi's killing "part of a growing series of crimes targeting journalists directly, in a systematic attempt to silence the Palestinian voice and erase the truth".

The Palestinian Journalists Protection Center (PJPC) also condemned the attack, saying "the deliberate targeting of journalists constitutes a war crime".

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said it "strongly condemns" the strike on the tent sheltering the journalists.

"The endless massacre of journalism in Gaza must stop!" it said in a statement.

The Israeli military meanwhile said its forces had "struck the Hamas terrorist Hassan Abdel Fattah Mohammed Aslih in the Khan Yunis area" overnight, without specifying whether he had been killed.

The military claimed Aslih operated "under the guise of a journalist and owns a press company."

It said Aslih had "infiltrated Israeli territory and participated in the murderous massacre carried out by the Hamas terrorist organisation on October 7th".

"During the massacre, he documented and uploaded footage of looting, arson, and murder to social media."

The Hamas government media office and the PJPC named Aslih among the nine wounded in the Khan Yunis strike.

- 'Trapped beneath rubble' -

In central Gaza, Bassal said an Israeli air strike hit three houses in Deir el-Balah city and killed at least seven people.

"Some people remain trapped beneath the rubble," the spokesman said.

Deir el-Balah was the target of an Israeli evacuation order late Sunday, warning residents of imminent attacks in response to a rocket salvo that the military said was fired from the area.

Further north, Bassal said a strike hit "a group of civilians" in Gaza City's Zeitun neighbourhood, killing three people.

The civil defence spokesman said there was also ongoing artillery shelling across Gaza and home demolitions in Rafah, on the territory's southern border with Egypt.

Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed.

According to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, at least 1,391 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,752.

Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.