A Zionist Israel bombardment in the Gaza Strip on July 31 killed an Al Jazeera journalist and a cameraman. The victims were identified as Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi. A bomb hit their car in the al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.

After the crime, Zionist Israel unabashedly declared al-Ghoul a “Hamas operative” to justify the killings. It even created a fabricated story that al-Ghoul was among those who attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Al Jazeera strongly refuted this.

The two victims were wearing media vests and their vehicle was clearly marked as media.

The Gaza government’s media office said they are the 164th and 165th Palestinian journalists killed by Israel since October 7, 2023. According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), they are the 119th and 120th Palestinian journalists killed.

The two victims were on their way near the al-Shati refugee camp where the house of Ismail Haniyeh, Iran-based Hamas leader, is located. They were supposed to report and take videos of this place.

“The network (Al Jazeera) condemns the accusations unsupported by any proof, documentation or video, against its reporter Ismail Al-Ghoul,” the network said. The group said Israel clearly targeted their journalists and that it is ready to file legal action against those involved in the killings.

Since November 2023, Al-Ghoul has been working at Al Jazeera and being a journalist is his only job. In March, the Israeli Defense Forces also arrested and detained Al-Ghoul, along with several other civilians, at Al-Shifa Hospital in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. They were detained for 12 hours, beaten and tortured. Zionist Israel’s allegations against him are all lies, the network said.

Israel’s Zionist government accuses Al-Jazeera of being a threat to its “national security.” It closed the network’s office in the country and banned its operations, primarily to silence the network’s critical reporting against Israel’s campaign of attack and genocide in Gaza.

As of August 4, at least 39,583 Palestinians have been killed including 15,000 children, 91,398 wounded and more than 10,000 missing since Zionist Israel intensified its genocidal campaign against Palestine.