Sawt Falasteen - Journalist working with Al Jazeera killed in Israeli Gaza strike, network says

"Hussam Shabat, a journalist collaborating with Al Jazeera Mubasher, was martyred in an Israeli strike targeting his car in the northern Gaza Strip," an Al Jazeera alert said, referring to the network's live Arabic channel.

The territory's civil defence agency confirmed his death, as well as that of Muhammad Mansour, an employee of the Islamic Jihad-affiliated Palestine Today TV.

The agency said Shabat was targeted by an Israeli drone strike on his car on Monday afternoon near a petrol station in the northern town of Beit Lahia.

It said Mansour was killed in a separate airstrike on his home in the southern city of Khan Yunis in the morning.

Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency, said airstrikes had targeted more than 10 cars in various areas of the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate called the deaths of Shabat and Mansour "a crime added to the record of Israeli terrorism".

"This horrific war crime aims to obscure the truth and terrorise all those who carry the message of free speech," it added.

It said that more than 206 journalists and media workers had been killed since the start of the war, triggered by Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel restarted intense air strikes across the densely populated Gaza Strip last week followed by ground operations, shattering the relative calm of a six-week ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that 730 people had been killed since Israel resumed bombardments on March 18, including 57 in the past 24 hours.

Earlier in March, Gaza's civil defence agency said nine people including journalists were killed in Israeli strikes in the north of the territory, an attack Hamas denounced as a "blatant violation" of the fragile ceasefire.

L.AbuTayeh--SF-PST