Three journalists among 11 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza

Hospitals in Gaza say Israeli forces killed at least 11 Palestinians on Wednesday, including two 13-year-old boys and three journalists, in the latest violence to undermine a three-month-old ceasefire.Palestinian health officials said the Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinian journalists who were travelling in a car to film a newly established displacement camp in the Netzarim area of central Gaza.The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said in a statement that the reporters who died “were carrying out a humanitarian, journalistic mission to film and document the suffering of civilians”.In separate incidents on the same day, two boys aged 13 were killed in different parts of Gaza. In one strike, a boy, his father and a 22-year-old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern edge of the Bureij refugee camp, according to officials at al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies.In another case, a 13-year-old boy, Moatsem al-Sharafy, was shot dead by Israeli troops while collecting firewood in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, according to Nasser hospital. Footage shared online showed the boy’s father weeping over his body on a hospital bed.The journalists killed were named as Mohammed Salah Qashta, Abdul Raouf Shaat and Anas Ghneim.The twisted remains of the Egyptian Relief Committee vehicle hit in an Israeli strike. Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/APShaat was a regular contributor to Agence France-Presse as a photo and video journalist, although the agency said he was not on assignment at the time of the strike.Local journalists said their work was sponsored by the Egyptian Relief Committee, which oversees Egypt’s relief operations in Gaza. Mohammed Mansour, a spokesperson for the committee, said the vehicle had been known to the Israeli military.Video circulating online showed a burned-out vehicle by the roadside, with smoke still rising from the wreckage and debris scattered across the ground. The bodies of two journalists had been taken to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, while the third was transferred to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, medical officials said.The Israeli military said it had ordered the strike after its soldiers “identified several suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas” in central Gaza.“Following the identification and due to the threat that the drone posed to the troops, the IDF precisely struck the suspects who activated the drone,” it said, adding that the details of the incident were under examination.The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Israeli forces had killed at least 29 Palestinian journalists in Gaza between December 2024 and December 2025 and that nearly 220 journalists had been killed since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023. Other groups put the toll higher.Moatsem al-Sharafy’s mother, Safaa al-Sharafy, told the Associated Press that her son had gone out to gather firewood so she could cook. She said: “He went out in the morning, hungry. He told me he’d go quickly and come back.”Israeli forces have killed at least 466 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect in October, according to health authorities.