Credit: Anadolu via Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strike was a “tragic mishap” and that the military was investigating.
“Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff, and all civilians,” his office said in a statement.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said the attack “appears to be a clear breach of international law and these sort of incidents have got to stop”.
“We utterly condemn this action and it’s yet another outrage in a war that’s gone on too long and cost too many innocent lives,” he said. “It’s very clear that targeting or hitting hospitals, health workers and civilians is a breach of international law.”
Asked about Netanyahu’s claim that the strike was a “tragic mishap”, Watt said: “This is not the first time we’ve seen Netanyahu apologise or accept when he calls innocent mistakes or mishaps.
“Every time something like this happens, it costs people’s lives. It’s not acceptable. What we’ll do is continue to work with the rest of the international community to demand a ceasefire, to demand hostages be released, and to demand peace in the Middle East and that requires some change from Mr Netanyahu.”
Watt said that Australians “are not only sick and tired of seeing these sort of images on their TV screens, but they’re distressed by them, as they rightly should be, as human beings”.
The first strike hit a top floor of one of the buildings at Nasser Hospital. Minutes later, as journalists and rescue workers in orange vests rushed up an external staircase to the scene, a second missile hit in the same spot, the head of Nasser’s paediatrics department, Dr Ahmed al-Farra, said.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said several doctors and civil defence workers were killed, and dozens of people were injured. In all, 20 people were killed, according to Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.
Freelance journalist Mariam Abu Dagga, who had been working with Associated Press and other outlets, poses for a portrait last year.Credit: AP
“We are devastated to learn of the death of Reuters contractor Hussam al-Masri and injuries to another of our contractors, Hatem Khaled, in Israeli strikes on the Nasser Hospital in Gaza today,” a Reuters spokesperson said in a statement.
“We are urgently seeking more information and have asked authorities in Gaza and Israel to help us get urgent medical assistance for Hatem.”
The AP said it was shocked and saddened by the death of Abu Dagga, who frequently based herself at Nasser, most recently reporting on the hospital’s doctors struggling to save children from starvation.
Rescue workers rushing to the scene of the initial attack were among those killed and injured in the second strike.Credit: Anadolu via Getty Images
“We are doing everything we can to keep our journalists in Gaza safe as they continue to provide crucial eyewitness reporting in difficult and dangerous conditions,” it said.
The military said its troops carried out a strike in the area of Nasser Hospital. The military said it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and does not target journalists as such.”
Dagga’s father Riyad, centre, and other relatives and friends pray over her body during her funeral in Gaza on Monday.Credit: AP
Israeli media reported that Israeli troops fired two artillery shells at the hospital, targeting a Hamas surveillance camera on the roof.
A British doctor who was working on the floor that was hit just after 10am, Gaza time, said the second strike hit before people could start evacuating from the first.
“Just absolute scenes of chaos, disbelief, and fear,” the doctor said. People wounded from the strikes – either directly caught in the blast or hit by debris – entered the ward, leaving trails of blood. Stretchers rushed past visitors searching for loved ones. The chaos hit as the hospital was already overwhelmed, with patients with IV drips lying on the floors in the corridors in stifling heat, they said.
The journalists’ deaths come two weeks after one of Al-Jazeera’s most recognisable faces reporting from Gaza, Anas al-Sharif, was killed alongside four colleagues in a strike on a tent near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Israel accused Sharif of being a Hamas cell leader posing as a journalist, a claim rejected by rights advocates, Al-Jazeera and organisations representing journalists.
Injured Palestinian photojournalist Hatem Omar is helped after the attack.Credit: AFP
The Israel-Hamas war has been one of the bloodiest conflicts for media workers, with at least 192 journalists killed in Gaza in the 22-month conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Aside from rare guided tours, Israel has barred international media from covering the war in person. News organisations instead rely largely on Palestinian journalists in Gaza – as well as residents – to show the world what is happening there.
The health ministry said on Sunday that at least 62,686 Palestinians had been killed in the war.
Stretchers rushed past visitors searching for loved ones.
Reuters
