Tag: Live updates: Devastation in Gaza as Israel wages war on Hamas

Israeli forces surrounded and attacked the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Friday, wounding several journalists and at least one other person.

Turkish state broadcaster TRT accused Israeli tanks of launching a “targeted attack” on the journalists, including TRT Arabi cameraman Sami Shehada, who lost a leg, and correspondent Sami Barhoum, who suffered minor injuries. CNN stringer Mohammad Al-Sawalhi was also among those hurt.

The TRT statement called the assault “a deliberate attack against media professionals, marked clearly with ‘PRESS’ on their jackets” and said it was “part of a broader pattern of violence” against journalists in Gaza. As of Friday, at least 95 media workers have been killed covering the war, according to preliminary figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

CNN video shows Shehada’s right leg was severed.

“We were filming in a safe place, I was wearing my flak jacket and my helmet — even the car I was in had a ‘PRESS’ and ‘TV’ sign marked on it. It was clear that I was a civilian and a journalist. We were targeted,” he told CNN from his operating bed.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment on the attack and allegations that journalists were targeted at the camp. 

Video from the scene: Footage filmed by Al-Sawalhi shows people — including children, women and the elderly — taking cover in shops and running away in panic as repeated artillery fire and gunshots can be heard in the near distance.

CNN spoke to an elderly man named Saleh, who said he was trying to flee the area after Israeli tanks surrounded the camp and that he’d been hit by shrapnel.

Moments later, Saleh could be seen crossing the street when intense artillery fire struck the road a few meters from where Al-Sawalhi was filming. The journalist was hit by shrapnel, slightly injuring his right hand.

Graphic footage of the aftermath shows the elderly man severely wounded, with a bloody head injury. Saleh, Al-Sawalhi, and a number of other journalists were taken to Al-Awda Hospital for treatment, CNN footage shows.

Recent attacks: Nuseirat camp, located north of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, has been the target of several Israeli airstrikes in recent days, including one that killed 14 people Tuesday, according to the spokesperson for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has admitted killing two Palestinian men and burying their bodies with a bulldozer after Al Jazeera published a video purportedly showing the incident Wednesday. 

The men approached its “operational area” in central Gaza “in a suspicious manner” and didn’t respond to a warning shot, the IDF said in a statement to CNN. The Israelis killed them and bulldozed their bodies fearing they carried explosives, it said.

What the video shows: In the video, which is filmed from a distance and has been heavily edited, two men are seen walking along a beach in Gaza, apart from one another; both appear to be waving white flags, to symbolize surrender, as they cautiously approach a group of Israeli soldiers. The video shows one man walking toward the soldiers with his hands in the air. He passes out of view behind some sand and concrete. It’s not clear what happens to him next. The second man turns away from the soldiers. As he hurriedly walks away from the camera, he is seen being followed by an Israeli armored vehicle. Suddenly, he falls to the sand, apparently shot. 

The video then cuts to another angle, a location that CNN has been unable to geolocate, where an Israeli military bulldozer is seen unceremoniously burying two bodies in sand and debris. It’s not clear whether the bodies shown in the second half of the film are the two men who were filmed at the start of the sequence. Al Jazeera claims the bodies are the same men.

Al Jazeera said in its commentary that the “giant bulldozer shovels the two bodies and buries them in sand and litter. The Israeli soldiers attempt to conceal the executions.”

CNN has asked Al Jazeera for an unedited copy of the footage. Al Jazeera said the incident happened near Al Rasheed Street in central Gaza. CNN geolocated the video and confirmed it showed the incident at the beach. Additional visual evidence – satellite imagery and videos – shows Israeli military engineering vehicles such as bulldozers were deployed there.

What Israel said: The edited video “represents two different incidents,” the IDF said.

“The first incident occurred in the southern part of the corridor. After the suspect did not respond to a warning shot, the (force) fired to his direction and he was shot and slightly wounded,” the IDF said, adding he was released after receiving medical treatment and questioning. 

The second incident occurred in the northern part of the corridor and the two suspects were fired at after approaching Israeli forces “in a suspicious manner,” the IDF said.