Footage shown on Al Jazeera of Al-Ghoul’s lifeless body showed him wearing his blue protective vest, which clearly identified him as a member of the press.
Israel has killed Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami Al-Rifi in a targeted airstrike in Al-Shati camp in the Gaza Strip in another attack on the Qatar-based broadcaster’s journalists on the ground.
Palestinian reporters on the ground first confirmed the killing of Al-Ghoul, 27, on Wednesday while he was covering Palestinians mourning Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed earlier in an airstrike in Tehran.
Al Jazeera then confirmed the killing of its journalist alongside Al-Rifi in a live broadcast, hours after Al-Ghoul was reporting live on the humanitarian suffering in northern Gaza.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from northern Gaza, correspondent Ana Al-Sharif said his body was transferred to the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital after the “deliberate and direct targeting.”
Footage shown on Al Jazeera of Al-Ghoul’s lifeless body showed him wearing his blue protective vest, which clearly identified him as a member of the press.
“This vest did not protect him from the Israeli occupation forces,” Al-Sharif told Al Jazeera, noting he was also following Israel’s evacuation order.
Al-Ghoul was known for his bravery and courage in covering the suffering of Palestinians in northern Gaza, especially during the Israeli occupation forces’ raid on the Al-Shifa Medical Complex late March.
Israeli occupation forces had arrested Al-Ghoul at the time before releasing him 12 hours later.
Al-Ghoul is now among more than 155 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel since the beginning of the brutal war in the Gaza Strip on October 7. The journalists are among at least 39,445 people killed by Israel for nearly 10 months.
Targeting of Al Jazeera
The killing of Al-Ghoul came under Israel’s targeting of Al Jazeera, especially following the war in the Gaza Strip, targeting its staff and their families.
On October 19, Israel killed 19 family members of Al Jazeera Arabic’s broadcast engineer, Mohamed Abu Al-Qumsan, during a massacre at the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
This followed another deadly Israeli attack on the same refugee camp on December 6, where 22 family members of Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent Moamen Al Sharafi were killed, including his elderly parents.
Less than a week later, Israeli forces killed the father of Al Jazeera’s Al-Sharif in a strike in northern Gaza, two weeks after occupation forces threatened to target the correspondent.
On October 25, 2023, Israel killed four members of prominent Al Jazeera journalist and Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh’s family.
Israel killed Dahdouh’s wife, 15-year-old son, seven-year-old daughter and infant grandson in an airstrike in the south, despite Israel announcing the area to be a safe zone before the attack.
Dahdouh, now in Doha, then survived a missile strike on December 15 in Khan Younis, where Al Jazeera’s cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, succumbed to his injuries after being left to bleed for six hours.
Israeli forces prevented medics from reaching him with nonstop shelling and a delay in requiring the ambulances to receive prior approval in order to reach Abu Daqqa.
Israel then killed Dahdouh’s eldest son, Hamza, on January 7 in a direct missile strike that targeted a car with journalists in Khan Younis.
On February 13, Israeli occupation forces targeted Al Jazeera’s correspondent Ismail Abu Omar and cameraman Ahmed Mattar with an air strike in northern Rafah. Abu Omar is currently in Doha for treatment after his leg was amputated.
Seeking to censor the Qatar-based network outside of Gaza, the Israeli government unanimously voted to shut down Al Jazeera’s local bureau on May 5. The decision was extended on July 21 for 45 additional days.
