ISTANBUL: Hamas condemned an Israeli attack Friday on journalists, including a team from TRT Arabi, the Arabic television channel of the Turkish public broadcaster, TRT, while covering Israeli raids on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian resistance group said it considered the attack an attempt by Israel “to terrorize them, discourage them from performing their message, and prevent them from conveying the truth about the crimes committed by the Nazi occupation forces against defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
It urged the international community and rights groups to condemn the “criminal behavior against journalists,” and to hold Israel “accountable for the crimes of repeated and deliberate targeting of them.”
Hamas also urged media organizations to exert pressure on Israel to allow journalists to enter Gaza, and allow them convey to the world “the image of what is happening in the Strip, including the brutal war of extermination.”
While preparing for a broadcast in
the Nuseirat refugee camp, the TRT Arabi team vehicle was attacked by the Israeli army.
Sami Shahada, who worked as an independent cameraman, was seriously injured and had to undergo surgery. TRT Arabi reporter Sami Berhum escaped unhurt.
Israel has waged a military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas which killed around 1,200 people.
More than 33,600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the seaside enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
The war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while much of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has urged it to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.
Source: Anadolu Agency