MEA says Israel probing journalist deaths. But Gaza hospital staircase stands as a monument to impunity

The Union Ministry of External Affairs has condemned the deaths of five journalists in an Israeli attack on a Gaza hospital, with spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal calling the killings “shocking and deeply regrettable” in response to media queries. “We understand that the Israeli authorities have already instituted an investigation.”

Though it may be part of the problem that the question of what happened at the hospital hangs on an Israeli military investigation.

Israeli military officials have now claimed they targeted Nasser Hospital as soldiers believed they were targeting a Hamas camera being used to observe Israeli forces. A justification that crumbles under scrutiny: none of the five journalists killed in the attack were among the six alleged Palestinian militant targets that Israel later named.

The strikes at the hospital that took place 10 minutes apart on Monday morning have triggered shock worldwide, with even Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu trying to cover up by calling it a “tragic mishap”, without explaining how Israel had hit the same hospital twice in ostensible error.

The first strike hit around 10 am local time, targeting the hospital’s emergency department, inpatient ward, and surgical unit. As emergency workers and journalists rushed to respond and document the carnage, a second blast struck the same location, hitting the staircase used by journalists and rescue teams.

A livestream by Al Ghad TV shows emergency workers responding to the first strike near the hospital’s top floor, with at least one journalist filming in the background. The camera captures the moment the second strike directly hits the staircase, sending smoke and rubble through the air. Bodies are visible in the aftermath, scattered across the very staircase where media personnel had gathered.

Journalist Hatem Omar, who rushed to the scene between strikes and was wounded, described the terror on a BBC podcast: “But as we climbed the stairs, we were suddenly hit by another explosion.”

Besides Hussam al-Masri, who worked on contract for Reuters for the past year, the journalists killed also included Mariam Abu Dagga, who freelanced for the Associated Press and other outlets, Mohammed Salama, who worked for Al Jazeera, Moaz Abu Taha, a freelance journalist who worked with several news organizations including occasionally contributing to Reuters, and Ahmed Abu Aziz, a journalist for Middle East Eye.

The damaged emergency staircase now stands as a symbol of the unanswered question: why was this specific location targeted twice?

Days earlier: Al Jazeera journalists killed in ‘targeted’ strike

The Nasser Hospital killings occurred just days after Israel killed five Al Jazeera journalists in what officials acknowledged was a targeted strike near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital. Correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, along with cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, died while working from a designated media tent at the hospital’s main gate.

The Israel Defense Forces explicitly confirmed they had targeted al-Sharif, claiming he served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas. Yet they provided no evidence for this assertion and offered no explanation for why four other journalists had to die alongside him. The Committee to Protect Journalists had previously warned that al-Sharif was being subjected to an Israeli military smear campaign.

AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi pointed to a broader scope in his response to India’s MEA statement: “Since October 7 2023, 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed by the genocidal regime of Netanyahu. Israeli racist government doesn't allow any foreign media to enter Gaza.”

The toll is above 240 and has occurred within a deliberate information vacuum. Israel has banned international media from entering Gaza independently, creating near-total reliance on local Palestinian journalists who now work under constant threat of assassination, starvation and with little fuel, electricity and internet. 

Rights groups say Israel has routinely sought to discredit Palestinian journalists by labeling them as Hamas operatives, typically after their deaths and without providing evidence. 

CPJ’s Jodie Ginsberg earlier told the BBC: “This is a pattern we’ve seen from Israel – not just in the current war, but in the decades preceding – in which typically a journalist will be killed by Israeli forces and then Israel will say after the fact that they are a terrorist, but provides very little evidence to back up those claims.”

Such impunity is not new for Israeli forces targeting journalists. A May 2023 report from the Committee to Protect Journalists had concluded that Israel engaged in a “deadly pattern” of lethal force against journalists and failed to hold perpetrators accountable.

There have been questions about the Western media’s role. This week, a Reuters stringer quit, accusing the global news agency of being complicit in the Israeli attack by publishing the country’s baseless claims about journalists being Hamas operatives.

Culture of impunity

According to a Washington Post piece, some prominent Israeli journalists and commentators have cheered these killings. On Monday, i24 News Arab affairs analyst Zvi Yehezkeli welcomed the news of the Nasser Hospital strike. “Just consider how much cognitive damage those terrorist-journalists … inflicted on Israel,” he said, according to the piece.

“Such sentiment is not exactly a minority opinion in Israel. According to a recent opinion poll, 76 percent of Israeli Jews agree to varying extents with the claim ‘there are no innocents in Gaza,’ a reflection of the broader suspicion with which the Israeli public views Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians, who have seen their homeland obliterated by Israeli bombardments and where increasing parts of it are in the grips of a UN-declared famine thanks to months of Israeli blockade,” it said.

The Israeli campaign is enabled by powerful allies, including unwavering American military support. As retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick candidly acknowledged in November 2023: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability... Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

US President Donald Trump has provided encouragement, telling Netanyahu’s government to “clean out” Gaza and “finish the job”. When Netanyahu imposed a blockade on food and aid to Gaza in March, he reportedly emphasised it was done “in full coordination with President Trump and his people”.

Israel has also repeatedly targeted hospitals throughout the war, despite the protections they receive under international law. Officials consistently claim medical facilities are being used by Hamas, yet rarely provide evidence to support these assertions. 

A report published by Action on Armed Violence earlier showed that 88 percent of Israel’s investigations into war crime allegations in Gaza were shut down or left unresolved. Among the unresolved inquiries are investigations into the killing of at least 112 Palestinians waiting for flour in Gaza City in February 2024.

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.

This month, 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.

The UN has condemned the latest killings and renewed calls for international media access to Gaza, urging Israel to uphold press freedom. But without accountability for past killings or genuine international pressure to change course, the pattern continues unabated.

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