Israeli army appears to change tack on strike that killed Gaza journalists

The Israeli military has seemingly walked back its justification for targeting a vehicle in Gaza last week, killing two media journalists, United States broadcaster NBC reported.

Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of media’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, was killed in an Israeli missile strike on Sunday in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Journalist Mustafa Thuraya was also killed in the attack, while a third passenger, journalist Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.

At the time of the attack, the Israeli army said it was targeting a “terrorist” in the vehicle.

It confirmed in a statement that a military aircraft “identified and struck a terrorist who operated an aircraft that posed a threat to (Israeli) troops,” adding that “we are aware of the reports that during the strike, two other suspects who were in the same vehicle as the terrorist were also hit”.

However, when asked if Israel had any proof that a so-called terrorist was present in the car, army spokesperson Daniel Hagari described the incident to NBC as “unfortunate”, and said that an investigation was continuing to determine what happened.

“Every journalist who dies, it’s unfortunate,” Hagari told NBC. “We understand they were putting a drone, using a drone. And using a drone in a war zone, it’s a problem. It looks like the terrorists,” adding that Hamas uses drones to collect intel on Israeli forces.

“We will investigate this incident and we will provide the data,” Hagari said.

Calling for an independent investigation into the strike, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said: “Israel first said it lethally targeted a car carrying journalists in Gaza because there was a terrorist in the car. Now it says that the use by a journalist of a drone made it ‘look like’ they were terrorists.”

CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Programme Coordinator Sherif Mansour said: “Targeting of civilians is illegal. Journalists use equipment like cameras and drones for their work. It does not make them terrorists and should certainly not make them targets.”