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The Qatar Press Center condemns the assassination of the Al Jazeera and Palestine Today reporters

The Qatari Press Center strongly condemns the assassination of Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent Hossam Shabat, in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his car in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, just hours after the martyrdom of journalist Mohamed Emad Mansour, correspondent for "Palestine Today" channel, along with his wife and son, who were killed in a similar airstrike that targeted their apartment in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

The center affirms that the Israeli occupation continues its genocidal war crimes against the people of Gaza, targeting journalists by bombing their positions in an effort to silence free media and prevent them from reporting the truth to the world, in flagrant violation of international law.

The center reiterates its call for the international community, United Nations organizations, human rights groups, and media organizations to condemn the targeting of journalists in Gaza and take urgent action to hold the Israeli occupation accountable before international courts for war crimes against journalists and media workers.

The center urges the international community to press Israel to release the detained journalists in Israeli prisons, who are suffering from harsh conditions that deprive them of the basic rights of prisoners, as stipulated by international laws and charters.

Systematic Crimes
"Palestine Today" channel, in a series of posts on the X platform, stated that their correspondent Mohamed Mansour was martyred along with his wife and son in a direct Israeli airstrike that targeted their apartment in Khan Younis.

The Gaza government media office strongly condemned the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the occupation, calling on the International Federation of Journalists, the Arab Journalists Union, and all press bodies around the world to condemn these systematic crimes against Palestinian journalists and media workers in the Gaza Strip.

The office said, "We hold the occupation, the U.S. administration, and the countries involved in the genocide fully responsible for committing this brutal and heinous crime."

The office also called on the international community and relevant international and media organizations worldwide to condemn the crimes of the occupation, deter it, and pursue its perpetrators in international courts for their continuous crimes, bringing the war criminals to justice. It further urged them to exert serious and effective pressure to stop the genocide and to protect journalists and media workers in Gaza and halt their killing and assassination.

Horrific Crime
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate also condemned the "massacre" of the direct targeting of journalists Mohamed Mansour and Hossam Shabat by the occupation. In a statement, it described it as a "crime added to the Israeli terrorism record."

The syndicate said that "their direct targeting is a horrific war crime aimed at erasing the truth and terrorizing anyone who carries the message of free speech."

It added, "This crime is not an isolated event or an exception; it is part of a systematic policy followed by the occupation to eliminate Palestinian journalists, who have become direct targets of the Israeli killing machine, simply for doing their duty in reporting the truth, in the largest bloodbath against journalists in modern history, amid suspicious international silence and shameful complicity with the crimes of the occupation."

Since the beginning of the genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, and over the course of 471 days, the Israeli army has deliberately targeted journalists, resulting in the martyrdom of 211 journalists, according to official sources.