Israel kills Palestinian journalist and family in Gaza strike
An Israeli air strike killed Palestinian journalist Walaa al-Jabari along with her entire family in Gaza City on Wednesday, raising the number of media workers killed during Israel’s war on Gaza to at least 231.
Jabari, who was pregnant at the time, was killed when her home in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in southwest Gaza City was bombed.
The strike also killed her husband, Amjad al-Shaer, and four of their children.
Local reports said the force of the blast was so intense it ejected her unborn child from her womb.
Images circulating on social media show a fetus wrapped in a shroud, though Middle East Eye could not independently verify their authenticity.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
Jabari worked as a newspaper editor for several local media outlets and is one of many Palestinian journalists killed in what rights groups and press advocates have called targeted Israeli attacks on the media.
Her death brings the total number of journalists killed by Israeli forces since October 2023 to at least 231, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.
Earlier this week, Israeli forces shot and killed photojournalist Tamer al-Zaanin during a raid near a Red Cross facility in Rafah.
During the same operation, an undercover Israeli unit detained Dr Marwan al-Hams, the director of field hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
'Systemic crimes against journalists'
The Government Media Office called on international organisations and the broader international community to condemn what it described as “systematic crimes against Palestinian journalists and media professionals”.
"We also call on them to exert serious and effective pressure to stop the crime of genocide, protect journalists and media professionals in the Gaza Strip, and stop the murder and assassination of them," the office said.
"We ask God Almighty to grant all our martyred colleagues and journalists mercy, acceptance, and Paradise, and to grant their families and the Palestinian press family patience and solace. We also wish a speedy recovery to all the wounded journalists."
Israel's war on Gaza has been described as the "worst ever conflict" for journalists, according to a report published in April by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
The report, titled News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World, said the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip since October 2023 had "killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined".
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
