By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) -Gaza authorities said an Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinian journalists outside a hospital on Thursday, though Israel’s army said it had attacked a vehicle carrying Islamic Jihad militants.
Medics said the five were among at least 21 people killed in Israeli air assaults across the enclave before dawn, as Hamas and Israel traded blame over delays in reaching a ceasefire deal after more than 14 months of fighting.
The Palestinian Journalists Union said one strike killed five journalists from the Al-Quds Today channel who were in a broadcast vehicle in front of Al-Awda Hospital in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Video from the scene showed the twisted wreckage of a white van with what appeared to be the remnants of the word “PRESS” in red on the back doors.
The union said more than 190 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli fire since the war began in October 2023.
The Gaza-based channel called the strike a massacre and said in a statement on Telegram the five “were killed as they carried out their media and humanitarian duty”.
The Israeli military said it “conducted a precise strike on a vehicle with an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell inside in the area of Nuseirat.”
Israel has regularly denied targeting journalists and says its take steps to avoid hitting civilians.
Medics in the enclave said eight other people were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood. The death toll could rise as many people were trapped under the rubble, they added.
In Gaza City, an Israeli strike on a house in the suburb of Sabra killed eight more people, medics said, bringing Thursday’s death toll to 21.
On Wednesday, Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel traded blame over their failure to conclude a ceasefire agreement despite progress reported by both sides in past days.
Hamas said Israel had laid down further conditions, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the group of going back on understandings already reached.
“The occupation has set new conditions related to withdrawal, ceasefire, prisoners, and the return of the displaced, which has delayed reaching the agreement that was available,” Hamas said.
Netanyahu responded in a statement: “The Hamas terrorist organization continues to lie, is reneging on understandings that have already been reached, and is continuing to create difficulties in the negotiations.”
The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.