An Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in Gaza that housed the offices of a number of media outlets.
The strike came Saturday, and the outlets (including the Associated Press and al Jazeera) were given an hour to evacuate. The building also had other offices and residential apartments.
There has not been an immediate explanation for why the 12-story building, which crumbled to the ground, was targeted by Israel, according to the Associated Press.
The Associated Press is “shocked and horrified” about the airstrike and the Israeli military “have long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there,” said the outlet’s president and CEO Gary Pruitt in a statement.
He confirmed that it received a warning and that it is looking for an explanation from the Israeli government.
“This is an incredibly disturbing development. We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life. A dozen AP journalists and freelancers were inside the building and thankfully we were able to evacuate them in time,” he added. “The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.”
In an update to the statement, Pruitt challenged the Israeli government to provide evidence to back up the claim that Hamas was in the building. He said they had “no indication” of Hamas’s presence there and added it’s “something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk.”
“The Israeli government says the building contained Hamas military intelligence assets,” he said. “We have called on the Israeli government to put forward the evidence. AP’s bureau has been in this building for 15 years.”
The Israeli Defense Forces acknowledged on social media that the building “contained civilian media offices,” but claimed that the building also contained “Hamas military intelligence assets” whom they alleged use the journalists to hide “behind and deliberately uses as human shields.”
https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1393565656621137920?s=20White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged the attack and said the administration discussed it with Israel.
“We have communicated directly to the Israelis that ensuring the safety and security of journalists and independent media is a paramount responsibility,” she said.
https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1393577210964058115?s=20
ISRAEL REBUFFS US CALLS FOR CEASEFIRE AS BLINKEN SENDS ENVOY TO REGION
Israel and Hamas, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization that operates in Gaza, are engaging in the most significant combat since the 2014 war and the 2000 Palestinian Second Intifada (or uprising).
Since the escalation of tension between the two sides, 139 people, 39 of them being children, were killed during Israeli airstrikes, Gaza’s health ministry said, according to the New York Times, though the numbers couldn’t be independently verified.
Hamas has launched about 2,300 rockets from Gaza, with about 1,000 of them getting intercepted by Israel’s missile defense system, known as the Iron Dome, Reuters reported. Around 380 rockets failed and detonated inside the Gaza Strip.
Earlier on Saturday, an Israeli airstrike hit a Gaza refugee camp house, killing at least 10 people from an extended family.
The Israel Defense Forces had “attacked a number of Hamas terror organization senior officials, in an apartment used as terror infrastructure in the area of the Al-Shati refugee camp,” while the Qassam Brigades, the armed militant wing of Hamas, said they would retaliate with rocket fire toward Tel Aviv in response to the “massacre against women and children” in the camp, it said in a statement, according to the New York Times.
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Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, or “Catastrophe” Day, which represents their displacement from the land following the creation of the country of Israel on Saturday.
The United Nations Security Council diplomats will hold an emergency session to discuss the escalating violence, they announced late Thursday.
