Nidal al-Mughrabi
The Independent / March 16, 2025
Airstrike on car kills at least three journalists.
At least nine Palestinians, including three local journalists, were killed on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza’s northern Beit Lahiya town, the local health ministry said, as Hamas leaders held ceasefire talks with mediators in Cairo.
Several people were critically injured as the airstrike hit a car, with casualties inside and outside the vehicle, health officials told Reuters.
The people in the car were on a mission for a charity called Al-Khair Foundation in Beit Lahiya and they were accompanied by journalists and photographers when the strike hit them, eyewitnesses said.
At least three journalists were among those killed, Palestinian media reported.
The Israeli military initially claimed it had struck two “terrorists” operating a drone that posed a threat to its personnel and several people who collected the drone equipment.
In another statement it named six men that it said were members of the Palestinian armed groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad and had been killed in the attack. Some of the militants had operated “under the cover of journalists”, it alleged.
Salama Marouf, head of the Gaza media office, run by Hamas, denied the Israeli allegations. “The team was made of civilians and worked in an area near a shelter on a mission sponsored by a charity. They were not in a prohibited area and didn’t pose any danger of any kind to the occupation army,” Mr Marouf said in a statement.
Another Israeli airstrike in the town of Juhr Eldeek in central Gaza killed two Palestinians later on Saturday. The Israeli army said it was unaware of the incident.
The renewed Israeli attacks underscore the fragility of the January 19 ceasefire deal that halted fighting in Gaza. Palestinian health officials said dozens of people had been killed by Israeli fire despite the truce.
Hamas accused Israel in a statement of attempting to renege on the ceasefire agreement, putting the number of Palestinians killed since January 19 at 150.
The group urged mediators to compel Israel to move ahead with the implementation of the phased ceasefire deal, blaming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the impasse.
Responding to some of the incidents reported by Gaza medics, the Israeli military claimed that its forces had intervened to thwart threats by “terrorists” approaching them or planting bombs near where they operated.
After the first phase of the ceasefire expired on March 2, Israel rejected opening the second phase of talks, which would require it to negotiate over a permanent end to the war, the main demand of Hamas.
The latest Israeli attacks in Gaza coincided with a visit by Hamas’s exiled Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, to Cairo for further ceasefire talks aimed at resolving disputes with Israel that could risk a resumption of fighting.
Hamas said on Friday that it had agreed to free an American-Israeli dual national if Israel were to start the next phase of ceasefire talks towards a permanent end to the war. Israel dismissed the offer as “psychological warfare”.
Hamas said it had made the offer to release New Jersey native Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old soldier in the Israeli army, after receiving a proposal from mediators for negotiations on the second phase.
Israel says that it wants to extend the ceasefire’s first phase rather than implement the second phase. Hamas says it will resume freeing hostages only under the second phase.
Israel launched the war on Gaza after a cross-border raid by Hamas in October 2023 saw around 1,200 civilians and soldiers killed and 251 taken hostage.
The Israeli war has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians so far, according to Gaza’s health officials, reduced much of the territory to rubble and led to accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.
Nidal al-Mughrabi – senior correspondent at Reuters
