At least 13 children among 38 killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza’s Khan Younis

Israeli strikes killed at least 38 people including 13 children from the same extended family in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis and three journalists in southern Lebanon on Oct 25 as growing worries about shortages of essentials in Gaza and international calls for a ceasefire mounted.

Gaza health officials were quoted as saying all the deaths occurred in the Khan Younis, where people have in recent days lined up for bread outside the city’s only bakery in operation.

Health officials citing graphic footage from the Palestinian Civil Defense said it showed rescuers pulling the bloodied bodies of at least nine children from the ruins.

Many of the victims were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis and to the European Hospital, where records showed at least 15 members of the al-Farra family had been killed, according to the health officials.

Saleh al-Farra, who lost his brother (17) and sister (15) in the strikes in Gaza’s Khan Younis was quoted as saying that intense bombardment and shelling sent his family members running to the middle of the house for shelter.

Soon his home was raised to rubble, he said.

“I started screaming until my brother and father came, and they started trying to get me out,” he said, adding, “I didn’t know anything about anyone.”

Also on Oct 25, an Israeli airstrike on guesthouses where journalists were staying in southeast Lebanon’s Hasbaya town killed three journalists working for news organizations that are reportedly seen aligned with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and its patron, Iran.

Meanwhile, a rare 3 a.m. (5.30 a.m IST) strike on an area that had so far been spared the hostilities in the rest of the region turned the site — a series of guesthouses nestled among trees that had been rented by various media outlets covering the war — into rubble, with cars marked "PRESS" overturned and covered in dust and debris.

Condemning the killing of journalists, Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad Makary said the journalists were killed while broadcasting “Israel’s crimes”, and noted they were among a large group of members of the media.

“This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with premeditation and planning, as there were 18 journalists present at the location representing seven media institutions,” Makary wrote on X.

The media persons killed in Hasbaya were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Al-Manar TV of Lebanon's Hezbollah group.

The killing of media persons came after a recent strike that hit an office belonging to Al-Mayadeen on the outskirts of Beirut's southern suburbs.

"I woke up to the whistling sound of a missile and found my door burst open while thick smoke rose from the garden. I thought there was a fire," Sky News Arabia senior correspondent Darine El Helwe was quoted as saying.

"I called one of my colleagues… He told me he was under the rubble," said Helwe, who has been covering the fighting between Israel-Hezbollah for over a year.

According to her the impact of the blast had thrown a broadcast vehicle from its parking spot.

Notably, mostly electronic media journalists had arrived in Hasbaya in recent weeks, deeming it safer after Israel had ordered an evacuation order for a town further south from which they were reporting.

The strikes in Hasbaya and Gaza came a day after United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel had accomplished its objective of “effectively dismantling” Hamas and implored both sides to revive negotiations.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Oct 25 said there was a real sense of urgency in getting to a diplomatic resolution to end the conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Iran-aligned Hezbollah, while calling for the protection of civilians.

Speaking to him before a bilateral meeting in London, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Blinken there was ethnic cleansing going on in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have intensified their military campaign in recent weeks.

Representatives of the news networks and Lebanese politicians accused Israel of war crimes and intentionally targeting journalists.

“These were just journalists that were sleeping in bed after long days of covering the conflict,” Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English, who was among the journalists in the compound was quoted as saying.

In a social media post, he said he and his team escaped unhurt.

Al-Mayadeen’s director Ghassan bin Jiddo was quoted as saying that the Israeli strike on a compound housing journalists was intentional and directed at those covering elements of its military offensive.

Jiddo vowed that the Beirut-based station, a pan-Arab broadcaster seen as aligned with Hezbollah, would continue its work.

The strike on Hasbaya town occurred reportedly hours after the Israeli military’s Arabic language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, directly challenged Al-Mayadeen war correspondent Ali Mortada in online posts and referred to him as “my enemy” in English.
The X post ended with the words — “Take care.”

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike.

Ali Shoeib, Al-Manar’s senior correspondent in south Lebanon, was seen in a video filming himself with a cellphone saying that the camera operator who had been working with him for months was killed.

Shoeib alleged the Israeli military knew that the area that was struck housed journalists from different media organizations.
“We were reporting the news and showing the suffering of the victims and now we are the news and the victims of Israel’s crimes,” Shoeib added in the video aired on Al-Manar TV.

The Hasbaya town has been spared much of the violence along the border and many of the journalists now staying there have moved from there and also from the nearby town of Marjayoun which has been subjected to sporadic strikes in recent weeks.

Lebanon’s Health Minister in a statement on Oct 25 said that 11 journalists have been killed and eight wounded since the exchange of fire began along the Lebanon-Israel border in early October 2023.

Pertinently, in November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike.

A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded other journalists from France’s international news agency, Agence France-Presse, and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV, according to media reports.