Four journalists have reportedly been killed in an Israeli attack on the Nasser Hospital in Gaza.

According to Gaza’s government media office, they were identified as Reuters photojournalist Hossam al-Masri, Al Jazeera photojournalist Mohammed Salama, Mariam Abu Daqa, who was a journalist with several media outlets such as the The Independent Arabic and Associated Press, and NBC journalist Moaz Abu Taha.

This raises the toll of journalists killed in the region to 244, according to Gaza’s government media office.

An Al Jazeera report quoted Hind Khoudary, their journalist reporting from Deir Al Balah in Gaza, to recall the series of events.

 “The Israeli forces launched an explosive suicide drone, where it hit the rooftop of Nasser hospital where at least a journalist was killed. Then civil defence teams went up, tried to retrieve the body, tried to rescue whoever was wounded. Journalists also went to document what happened. And then the Israeli forces targeted the same place again. Another airstrike at the same exact location and this is actually documented on air. Now, what happened is journalists that were covering this have been killed and wounded. And also, the civil defence teams that were trying to retrieve the bodies of those who were killed were also killed,” she was quoted as saying.

Khoudary said she was also among journalists who report from hospitals. 

“We are in a two-year war where we have been deprived of electricity and internet so Palestinian journalists are using these services at hospitals to continue reporting. We have always following the wounded Palestinians, funeral, malnutrition cases as these are always transferred to hospitals. That is why Palestinian journalists are making hospitals their base and end up being targeted,” she said, according to Al Jazeera.

For months, doctors who worked in Gaza, along with aid organisations and international rights groups, warned that the enclave was on the verge of famine. Harrowing accounts and images of starvation emerged, as Gaza’s civil defence repeatedly reported that children were dying every day from hunger. Israel, waging war in Gaza for nearly two years, dismissed these accounts as false, while its Western allies offered little more than symbolic concern. Last week, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification confirmed that a fully “man-made famine” is underway in Gaza’s largest city and nearby areas – the first officially recognised famine in West Asia. According to the IPC, one in five households is facing extreme food shortages, more than a third of children are acutely malnourished, and at least two in every 10,000 people are dying daily from starvation or the combined effects of malnutrition and disease.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, killing more than 60,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

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