3 journalists killed in Israeli airstrike in Gaza, including cameraman who worked with CBS News
An Israeli airstrike killed three journalists in Gaza on Wednesday, the territory's civil defense agency said. One of those killed, Abed Shaat, had worked for years as a cameraman for CBS News and other outlets.
Officials identified the other two journalists killed as Mohammed Salah Qashta and Anas Ghneim, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported. Shaat had also contributed regularly to AFP, but the agency said he was not on assignment for them at the time.
Civil defense officials said the three were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Al-Zahra area, southwest of Gaza City.
The Israel Defense Forces released a statement saying troops "identified several suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas in the central Gaza Strip, in a manner that posed a threat to their safety," and then "struck the suspects who activated the drone." The IDF said details of the incident are being reviewed.
According to an eyewitness, the journalists were using a drone to take images of aid distribution by the Egyptian Relief Committee in the Gaza Strip when a strike targeted a vehicle accompanying them, AFP reported.
The Egyptian aid group confirmed one of its vehicles was targeted by Israel in a strike that killed three people.
"A vehicle belonging to the Egyptian Committee was targeted during a humanitarian mission, resulting in the martyrdom of three individuals," said Mohammed Mansour, a spokesman for the Egyptian Relief Committee in the Gaza Strip, adding that all vehicles belonging to the group "bear the committee's logo."
"The Israeli army criminally targeted this vehicle" when the individuals were filming the Netzarim camp, Mansour said.
Abed Shaat filed regularly for CBS News from the city of Khan Yunis during the war in Gaza, even sending video from the back of an ambulance on one occasion when he was wounded.
He was 30 years old and had gotten married just two weeks ago.
In an email to CBS News staff on Wednesday, colleagues in London remembered Shaat as "a brave journalist" who was "deeply loved by everyone who knew or worked with him."
"His work was distinctive because of its technical prowess under the most unimaginable circumstances," CBS News London producer Kamal Afzali said. He called Shaat "an eyewitness to extreme pain with the superhuman power to document it."
After the ceasefire went into effect in October, Shaat went to work with the Egyptian Humanitarian Committee in the Gaza Strip, where he was responsible for photographing all humanitarian activities and relief operations on behalf of the committee.
The Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate condemned the strike as part of a "systematic and deliberate policy pursued by the Israeli occupation to intentionally target Palestinian journalists."
Israeli forces have killed at least 466 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The Israeli military said militants have killed three of its soldiers during the same period.
Gaza's health ministry said another eight Palestinians were also killed in Israeli attacks in the territory on Wednesday, making it one of the deadliest days since the ceasefire began, the Associated Press reported.