Deadly attacks hit the home of a news photographer in Gaza, days after an Israeli media advocacy group questioned his reporting on Hamas’ October 7 attack, prompting death threats against him on social media.
Yasser Qudih, who survived the attacks on the night of November 13, said four projectiles hit the back of his house, killing eight family members.
The attack occurred five days after the Nov. 8 report by HonestReporting that questioned whether Qudih, a freelance photographer, and three other Gaza-based photographers had prior knowledge of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Reuters strongly denied HonestReporting’s speculation, as did other international news organizations mentioned in the report.
Qudih had provided photos to Reuters during the October 7 Hamas attack, although he was not a Reuters staff photographer.
Qudih said he had returned home just an hour before the raids on his home, which were seconds apart and without warning, at around 7:50 pm (1750 GMT).
“Israel attacked my house,” he said. When asked why, he added: “I don’t know.”
Reuters could not verify who was responsible for the attacks, why Qudih’s home in southern Gaza was targeted and whether the attacks were related to HonestReporting’s November 8 report.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which has launched a military offensive in Gaza in response to the October 7 attack, declined to say whether its forces carried out the attack and, if so, what its purpose was.
“The IDF is currently focused on eliminating the threat from the terrorist organization Hamas. These types of questions will be examined at a later stage,” it said in response to questions from Reuters.
In a statement, Reuters said it was “deeply saddened” to learn of the deaths of Qudih’s relatives. It also said HonestReporting had made “baseless allegations” against Qudih.
“Numerous threats against his safety subsequently circulated online. HonestReporting later accepted that the allegations were unfounded,” Reuters reported.
“The situation on the ground is dire, and the IDF’s unwillingness to provide guarantees about the safety of our staff threatens their ability to deliver news about this conflict without fear of being injured or killed.”
TWO-STORY HOUSE
HonestReporting’s Nov. 8 report prompted the Israeli prime minister’s office to say the journalists were complicit in “crimes against humanity.” Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz suggested they should be treated as terrorists and hunted down, and a former Israeli envoy to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said they should be “eliminated.”
After releasing his report, Honest Reporting Executive Director Gil Hoffman told Reuters on November 10 that his organization accepted as “adequate” statements by Reuters and other media organizations mentioned in the report that they had no prior knowledge of the attack.
HonestReporting did not respond to requests for comment on the attack on Qudih’s home. Requests were submitted by Reuters to HonestReporting on Thursday.
In a response to Reuters on Thursday, Danon, a member of Israel’s ruling Likud party, repeated his initial comment when asked about the attacks on Qudih’s home.
“Every terrorist who illegally entered our communities on October 7, every individual who arrived with the vicious killers who brutally murdered, raped, mutilated, burned and kidnapped their way through southern Israel, will suffer the same fate,” he said. he.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the Israeli military follows international law and is “taking feasible precautions to limit harm to the civilian population.”
Gantz’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Hamas did not comment on the attack on Qudih’s house.
Qudih told Reuters he lived in a two-storey house where only he and his immediate and extended family lived. About 20 people were at home during the strikes, which left a large crater in a garden behind the house and destroyed one side of the building.
The director of Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in the area where Qudih lived, confirmed to Reuters that the names and ages of the eight relatives killed were listed among the deaths registered with the hospital.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)