Israel Kills 5 Journalists in Strike on Gaza Hospital, Including AP Reporter

Friends,

 On Tuesdays from 4:30 to 5 PM at 33^rd & N. Charles Streets in Baltimore, Janice, Stan Becker and I gather there with signs and leaflets decrying the ongoing genocide in Palestine.  A number of drivers and others show support for our efforts.  On occasion, though, a person will disagree with our perspective.  On August 12, a person approached Janice and I and proudly announced he is Jewish, supports Israel and is involved in weapons contracting.  I generally try to elicit some kind of information from all who object.  I am naïve and do this to try to see if a logical argument might convince the person to rethink their beliefs.

 This person was quite young and a bit cocky.  I brought up the killing of the journalists on August 10, and this did not result in any expression of sympathy for the deceased.  He indicated that Netanyahu said he was sending in international journalists.  My retort was why would anyone believe the prime minister.  Note those independent journalists have yet to arrive.

 When he tried to make the point that we did not understand the situation in Israel, I informed him that In 1989 I was part of a human rights delegation which traveled in Israel and occupied Palestine. I saw apartheid there no different than the one I witnessed in South Africa.  Our objector, however, saw no war crimes being committed by the IDF and expressed no concern for the starving masses. Images of dead children or those with significant injuries or amputated limbs were not going to change his mind. Israel can do no harm. When he realized we saw through his genocide-denial obfuscation, he abruptly called us Hamas and went away. These genocide deniers are similar to MGA supporters.  The IDF is the most moral army in the world, and Donald Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize.  Kagiso, Max  

 https://truthout.org/articles/israel-kills-5-journalists-in-strike-on-gaza-hospital-including-ap-reporter/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=e058456edc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_08_25_09_21_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-0c7ed75a33-650130133

Israel Kills 5 Journalists in Strike on Gaza Hospital, Including AP Reporter

The attack sent shockwaves as a second strike on rescue teams was caught on live broadcast.

Sharon Zhang , 

Truthout

August 25, 2025

 Mariam Dagga, a Palestinian visual journalist who has freelanced for AP since the start of the war, stands in front of cameras in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 18, 2025.Bashar Taleb / AFP

Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.

Israeli forces killed five journalists and those who came to rescue them in an apparent “double tap” strike on a major hospital in southern Gaza on Monday, in a massacre that health officials say left at least 20 Palestinians dead.

Gaza officials confirmed the journalists’ deaths. Hussam al-Masri, Mariam Abu Dagga, Mohammad Salama, and Moaz Abu Taha were killed immediately, while Ahmed Abu Aziz later died of his injuries. The journalists have done work for numerous outlets, with Dagga having worked for The Associated Press; al-Masri for Reuters; Salama for Al Jazeera; Salama and Aziz for Middle East Eye; and more.

The journalists were on the top floor of Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in southern Gaza, when Israel bombed them. Witnesses said that about 10 to 15 minutes later, as a group of civil defense workers responded to the attack, Israel bombed the hospital again, killing the medical workers as well. The hospital said that four of its staff had been killed.

The second strike was captured on a live broadcast on al-Ghad TV.

Double tap strikes violate international law, and have reportedly been increasingly used by Israeli forces in targeting Palestinian health workers in Gaza.

Israel acknowledged the strike, but said that it is opening an inquiry into the attack, claiming that Israeli forces do not target journalists — even as officials have openly bragged about their assassinations of Palestinian journalists, many of whom they have labelled as “terrorists.” A recent investigation found, in fact, that Israel has an entire intelligence unit tasked with justifying such killings.

Journalists often use the part of the hospital struck by Israel for live broadcasts, a surgeon who works at Nasser told The Washington Post. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported seeing an Israeli surveillance drone over the facility before the attack, “providing further evidence that it was deliberate and intelligence-guided, with precise information collected about the site and the victims.”

The Associated Press wrote that Dagga frequently worked out of Nasser. In her latest report for AP, on August 14, she reported on malnourished children in the hospital who were dying or at risk of death because of Israel’s near-total blockade on food and supplies needed to treat severe starvation cases.

Al Jazeera has reported that over 270 journalists have been killed in Israel’s genocide. The journalist death toll in Gaza is the worst of any war in modern history, with more journalists killed than in the last seven major U.S.-involved wars combined, including both world wars.

UN experts have said that Israel is killing journalists in order to erase witnesses to its atrocities, especially as it embarks on its destruction of Gaza City.

“Palestinian journalists right now are crying. If I show you my colleagues that are sitting between their reporting and live shifts, they’re trying to hold their tears, trying to find the words to describe what is going on. Our colleagues were killed live on air,” said Al Jazeera journalist Hind Khoudary. “There’s no way there are any words to describe what’s happening.”

“How many times are we going to continue reporting on the killing of our colleagues or the killing of other journalists working with Al Jazeera and other news outlets?” Khoudary asked.

UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese pleaded with countries to intervene to end Israel’s slaughter.

“Scenes like this unfold every moment in Gaza, often unseen, largely undocumented. I beg STATES: how much more must be witnessed before you act to stop this carnage?” she wrote.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

 Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.

Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212.  Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs