Gaza medics say Israeli strike kills five journalists, Israel says it hit militants

Gaza authorities said an Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinian journalists in a vehicle outside a hospital on Thursday but the Israeli army said the victims were Islamic Jihad militants posing as media workers.

Medics said the five were among at least 26 people killed in Israeli air assaults across the Palestinian enclave before dawn as Hamas and Israel traded blame over delays in reaching a ceasefire deal after more than 14 months of fighting.

The Palestinian Journalists Union said one strike killed five journalists from the Al Quds Today channel who were in a broadcast vehicle in front of Al Awda Hospital in the Al Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The union said more than 190 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli fire since the war began in October 2023.

The Gaza-based channel called the strike a massacre and said in a statement on Telegram the five "were killed as they carried out their media and humanitarian duty". It has regularly featured Islamic Jihad leaders and provided day-to-day coverage of the war in Gaza.

The Israeli military said it "conducted a precise strike on a vehicle with an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell inside in the area of Nuseirat".

Later, it issued a statement listing the names of the five TV crewmen and saying: "Intelligence from multiple sources confirmed that these individuals were Islamic Jihad operatives posing as journalists."

Israel has regularly denied targeting journalists and says it takes steps to avoid hitting civilians.

The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, fought several rounds against Israel in the past two decades, and fighters of the group have joined the fighting against Israel since October 2023. It said it has hostages in its custody too.

The group condemned Israel's killing of the five men in a statement but it did not claim any of them as a member.

Israel's campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.