GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera said Tuesday two of its journalists were severely wounded in an Israeli strike in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.
Reporter Ismail Abu Omar’s life is at risk after he had his right leg amputated, while doctors are attempting to save the left one, Al Jazeera said quoting an emergency physician.
Cameraman Ahmad Matar was described by Al Jazeera as being in a “serious condition” after being targeted by an Israeli drone in northern Rafah.
The two journalists have been admitted to the European Hospital, on the southern edge of Khan Yunis city.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the two were hit in a strike from an Israeli warplane in the Moraj area.
Hamas’s government media office said it “condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli occupation army’s targeting of the Al Jazeera crew.”
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike when contacted by AFP, saying only it would check the details of the incident.
Two other journalists with the broadcaster have been killed during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, while bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh was wounded.
His son and fellow journalist Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh was killed when Israeli forces targeted a car last month, along with another video journalist, Mustafa Thuria.
The network’s cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa was killed in a separate strike in December.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has recorded the deaths of at least 85 journalists and media workers — 78 of them Palestinian — since the war erupted on October 7.
Al Jazeera says journalist severely wounded, another has leg amputated after Israeli strike on Gaza
https://arab.news/pjsxf
Al Jazeera says journalist severely wounded, another has leg amputated after Israeli strike on Gaza
- The broadcaster’s bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh was wounded earlier, and his son and fellow journalist Hamza was killed last month
- Reporter Ismail Abu Omar’s life is at risk after he had his right leg amputated
China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summons international media representatives
HONG KONG: China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summoned international media representatives for a “regulatory talk” on Saturday, saying some had spread false information and smeared the government in recent reports on a deadly fire and upcoming legislative elections.
Senior journalists from several major outlets operating in the city, including AFP, were summoned to the meeting by the Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS), which was opened in 2020 following Beijing’s imposition of a wide-ranging national security law on the city.
Through the OSNS, Beijing’s security agents operate openly in Hong Kong, with powers to investigate and prosecute national security crimes.
“Recently, some foreign media reports on Hong Kong have disregarded facts, spread false information, distorted and smeared the government’s disaster relief and aftermath work, attacked and interfered with the Legislative Council election, (and) provoked social division and confrontation,” an OSNS statement posted online shortly after the meeting said.
At the meeting, an official who did not give his name read out a similar statement to media representatives.
He did not give specific examples of coverage that the OSNS had taken issue with, and did not take questions.
The online OSNS statement urged journalists to “not cross the legal red line.”
“The Office will not tolerate the actions of all anti-China and trouble-making elements in Hong Kong, and ‘don’t say we didn’t warn you’,” it read.
For the past week and a half, news coverage in Hong Kong has been dominated by a deadly blaze on a residential estate which killed at least 159 people.
Authorities have warned against crimes that “exploit the tragedy” and have reportedly arrested at least three people for sedition in the fire’s aftermath.
Dissent in Hong Kong has been all but quashed since Beijing brought in the national security law, after huge and sometimes violent protests in 2019.
Hong Kong’s electoral system was revamped in 2021 to ensure that only “patriots” could hold office, and the upcoming poll on Sunday will select a second batch of lawmakers under those rules.
