The number of journalists killed by Israel in Gaza grew to 109 on Sunday with a targeted drone strike on the car of Al Jazeera reporter Hamza al-Dahdouh, killing him alongside fellow journalist Mustafa Thuraya.
Hamza was the eldest son of the Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh, and the fifth member of al-Dahdouh’s family to be killed in a series of deliberate and targeted murders by the criminal US-backed Israeli regime.
Al Jazeera journalist Wael Dahdouh holds the hand of his son Hamza, who also worked for Al Jazeera and who was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024. Dahdouh lost his wife, two other children and a grandson earlier in the war and was nearly killed himself in a separate Israeli war crime.
“Hamza was everything to me, the eldest boy, he was the soul of my soul,” Dahdouh told Al Jazeera on Sunday. “These are the tears of parting and loss, the tears of humanity.”
In a statement published after hours of silence in the face of questions by reporters, the Israeli military confirmed that it deliberately targeted the journalists’ vehicle, referring to the murdered men as “suspects.”
The statement declared:
An Israeli military aircraft identified and struck a terrorist operative who was operating an aircraft that posed a threat to troops. We are aware of reports that during the strike, two other suspects who were in the same vehicle as the terrorists were also hit.
The third man in the car was Hazem Rajab, a photojournalist whose responsibilities include operating photographic drones. The group of journalists was in reality targeted for performing their professional obligations in what Israel officially designated a “safe zone” for civilians.
Speaking in Qatar on Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked whether the United States condemned the targeting of journalists by Israel.
Blinken refused to condemn either the murder of Hamza or Israel’s practice of deliberately killing journalists, instead shedding crocodile tears about what a “tragedy” his death was.