An Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinian journalists outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip overnight, the Health Ministry said early Thursday. The Israeli military said all five were militants posing as journalists.

The strike hit a car in front of Al-Awda Hospital in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The journalists were working for the local news outlet Al-Quds Today, a television channel linked to the Islamic Jihad militant group.

The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad is a smaller and more extreme ally of Hamas and participated in its attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli military identified the four men as militant propagandists and said intelligence, including a list of Islamic Jihad operatives found by soldiers in Gaza, confirmed that all five were affiliated with the group.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups run political, media and charity operations in addition to their armed wings.

Doctors said the five were among at least 21 people killed in pre-dawn Israeli airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave as Hamas and Israel traded blame for delays in reaching a ceasefire agreement after more than 14 months of fighting.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the war began. Israel has not allowed foreign reporters into Gaza except on military transports.

The Gaza-based channel called the attack a massacre and said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that the five were “killed while carrying out their media and humanitarian duty”.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they “carried out a precision strike on a vehicle carrying an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell in the Nuseirat area.”

Israel has regularly denied attacks on journalists and says it takes steps to avoid attacks on civilians.

Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced, and much of Gaza is in ruins.

The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in Gaza, according to Israeli figures.

The number of deaths could rise, doctors say

Video from the scene of Thursday’s attack showed the mangled wreckage of a white van with what appeared to be the remains of the word “PRESS” painted in red on the back door.

Later on Thursday, dozens of relatives and fellow journalists attended the funeral of the five journalists whose bodies were wrapped in white shrouds. Blue bulletproof vests emblazoned with “PRESS” were placed on top of the shrouded bodies.

“The Israeli military justifies or justifies this targeting by claiming that it targets individuals involved in Palestinian organizations and cells. However, on the ground, these individuals were on journalistic assignments, staying in journalistic vehicles and covering events,” said Abed Meqdad, a TV correspondent. of the Al-Araby channel during the funeral.

Women wept next to the body while men performed special prayers before the burial.

“May God take revenge on them, may God take revenge on them. He is the one who makes news and publishes crimes to the world, that is what they are doing to them,” said the mother of Fadi Hassouna, one of the journalists who died.

Doctors in the enclave said eight more people were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. The death toll could rise as many people are trapped under the rubble, they added.

In Gaza City, an Israeli attack on a house in the suburb of Sabra killed eight more people, doctors said, bringing the death toll to 21 on Thursday.

Israel and Hamas blame each other for the delayed ceasefire

On Wednesday, Hamas and Israel traded blame for failing to reach a ceasefire agreement despite progress reported by both sides in recent days.

Hamas said Israel had set further conditions, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the group of backing away from agreements already reached.

“The occupation imposed new conditions related to withdrawal, ceasefire, prisoners and the return of the displaced, which delayed the achievement of an agreement that was available,” Hamas said.

Netanyahu responded in a statement: “The terrorist organization Hamas continues to lie, renege on agreements already reached and continue to create difficulties in negotiations.”