A team of charity workers has been killed in Israeli strikes in northern Gaza, the UK-registered Al Khair Foundation has told the BBC.
The charity said eight workers – including volunteers and journalists documenting their activities – were killed when their vehicles were targeted on Saturday in what Hamas described as a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire agreement with Israel.
The Israeli military has said it had struck “two terrorists who were identified operating a drone that posed a threat to Israeli troops”, adding that it then targeted “additional terrorists” who arrived at the scene.
The charity rejects the allegation that members of its team were terrorists.
Qasim Rashid Ahmad, founder and chairman of the charity, told the BBC the team was in the area to set up tents and document it for the charity’s own promotion efforts.
He said that its cameramen came back to the car and were hit, while other team members who rushed to the scene were then struck by an Israeli drone which had followed them when they went to the charity’s second car.
But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted people operating a drone who posed a threat to Israeli troops in Beit Lahia, adding: “Later, a number of additional terrorists collected the drone operating equipment and entered a vehicle. The IDF struck the terrorists.”
Video editor Bilal Abu Matar and cameramen Mahmoud Al-Sarraj, Bilal Aqila and Mahmoud Asleem were all named as having been killed in the strike, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.
The organisation accused Israel of carrying out “systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists, who risk their lives to report the truth and expose Israeli crimes to the world”.
Several others were injured in the strike, and rushed to the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run health ministry said.
A spokesman for the group, Hazem Qassem, accused Israel of having “committed a horrific massacre in the northern Gaza Strip”.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been in place since January, after 15 months of fighting, but its future is uncertain as the process has reached an impasse.
The first phase of the multi-stage deal saw Hamas return dozens of hostages, both alive and dead, that it had captured during its attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Talks to extend the first phase of the ceasefire – which ended on 1 March – ended without an agreement, a Palestinian official told the BBC on Saturday.
Negotiators were working on a US-proposed extension, which would include a further exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Washington accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands. The group has demanded immediate talks on the second phase, including discussions of a permanent ceasefire, as laid out in the agreement brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the US in January.
Hamas’s unprecedented assault on Israel on 7 October 2023 saw about 1,200 people killed and 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.
Israel responded with a massive military offensive on the Palestinian territory, which has killed more than 48,300 people, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says.
By BBC News
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