Arabic English French Spanish

The Qatar Press Center condemns the assassination of the journalist who survived the journalists' massacre.

The Qatar Press Center strongly condemns, in the strongest terms, the assassination of journalist Hassan Esleih by Israel in an airstrike on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip. He had been receiving treatment there since being injured a month ago, following the targeting of the journalists' tent by the Israeli army in what became known as the "journalists’ massacre."

With his death, the number of journalists killed in Gaza since the start of the genocide war on October 7, 2023, has risen to 218, in addition to hundreds of wounded media personnel, according to official sources.

The Center reiterates its denunciation of the deliberate Israeli targeting of hospitals, shelters for displaced people, and locations where journalists are based. This is a clear attempt to silence free media and prevent journalists from conveying the truth to the world, in blatant violation of international and humanitarian law.

The Center calls on the international community, UN organizations, human rights bodies, and media institutions to condemn the targeting of journalists in Gaza and to act swiftly to hold the Israeli occupation accountable before international courts for war crimes committed against journalists and media workers. The failure to hold Israel accountable has only emboldened its forces to continue the systematic killing, arrest, and intimidation of journalists in full view of the world.

The Center also calls on the international community to pressure Israel to release detained journalists held in Israeli prisons under inhumane conditions that deprive them of the most basic rights guaranteed by international laws and conventions.

The martyr Hassan Esleih was a field journalist who covered scenes of the bloody Israeli war on the Gaza Strip. He had miraculously survived a previous direct targeting by Israeli forces of the journalists' tent at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, where he had been with fellow journalists.

Activists on social media circulated images and audio clips of the martyr testifying to the targeting of journalists in Gaza, aimed at obscuring the truth and preventing exposure of the massacres committed by the occupation against civilians, and the effort to exterminate journalists.

Local sources reported that an Israeli drone targeted the third floor of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, and that the Israeli army also bombed the reception and emergency building of the medical complex.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine mourned journalist Esleih in a statement, saying that Palestine had lost one of its devoted sons and that Palestinian journalism had lost one of its national pillars. In recent years, he had become one of the most prominent and important media voices defending Palestinian rights. He was at the forefront of those covering the ongoing aggression against Gaza since day one, delivering the truth to the world through his lens and words, becoming a Palestinian media icon, a witness to the crimes of the occupation, and a reliable source of information and imagery.