Child, Al Jazeera journo among 9 killed in fresh Israeli fire in Gaza

At least nine people, including a child and an Al Jazeera journalist, were killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip Saturday, local health officials said.

An Israeli airstrike killed four Palestinians, including two women and a child, in an apartment building in Gaza City, health officials said.

The attack on the building in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City destroyed the apartment and wounded several other people, medics said.

In another incident, Israeli forces shot and killed a woman in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza City, medics said. Another Israeli airstrike killed at least one person and wounded eight others in Khan Younis, south of the enclave.

Later Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed three people, medics said, including Al Jazeera journalist Ahmed Wishah, in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera said Wishah, a cameraman, was killed in a “heinous crime,” about two months after the Israeli military killed his brother, Mohammed Wishah, also an Al Jazeera journalist.

The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate condemned Wishah’s killing Saturday and called for accountability for Israeli leaders in such attacks, which the Syndicate said have killed nearly 300 Palestinian journalists since Israel launched its genocidal war in October 2023.

Israel has often claimed without evidence that the journalists it targeted in Gaza were linked to groups like Hamas.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it killed a Hamas member, who it claimed posed a threat and was an Al Jazeera photojournalist.

It did not provide evidence. It said Wishah served as a “sniper,” adding that it killed him and two other Hamas members.

It had also accused the brother it killed in April of being a senior Hamas member. Hamas and Al Jazeera denied Wishah had any affiliation with the group.

“Al Jazeera Media Network condemns the deliberate killing of its Al Jazeera Mubasher cameraman Ahmed Wishah by Israeli occupation forces today, Saturday, June 20, in an Israeli bombardment that targeted a house in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip,” Al Jazeera said in a statement.

Al Jazeera said the latest killing raised to 12 the number of its journalists Israeli forces have killed in Gaza since October 2023. An October 2025 cease-fire has halted major fighting between Hamas and Israel, but it has not ended Israeli attacks.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Israeli fire killed more than 1,010 Palestinians since the cease-fire. Four Israeli soldiers were also killed in Gaza over the same period.

Israel says its strikes are aimed at thwarting attacks by Hamas and other groups.

Israel and Hamas remain deadlocked over how to proceed with the next stage of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, which involves Hamas laying down its arms and Israeli withdrawals.

Mediators, including Egypt, Qatar, Türkiye and Nickolay Mladenov, former President Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, held talks on the second phase of Trump’s Gaza plan but have not reached an agreement, sources close to the talks said.

Israel says Hamas must cede power in Gaza, disarm and play no role in the future governance of the enclave. Hamas links any full disarmament to launching a political track toward establishing a Palestinian state.

Israel’s two-year genocidal war killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. The war was triggered by the October 2023 Hamas incursion, which caused 1,200 deaths.

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