‘I refuse a cheap death’: Israel killed a Palestinian journalist in Gaza | News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
A Palestinian writer, poet and journalist was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, according to his family, bringing the total number of journalists killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since October 7, 2023 to 220.
Mohammad Hijazi was among nearly 90 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the besieged territory in the past 24 hours, according to a statement from the Gaza Health Ministry on Sunday.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the Jabalia camp since Israel imposed a military siege on northern Gaza on October 5 and stepped up bombardment, forcing thousands to flee. Israel has prevented even humanitarian groups from supplying the area with basic foodstuffs.
“I don’t know if I will write to you again. I keep what I wrote and write. Maybe one day it will come to light. I refuse a cheap death. I curse the murderer”, Hijazi wrote on Facebook last August.
“Let us arm ourselves in this bottom that we have finally reached with patience and prayer, let us count the days we have lived as a historical achievement, waiting for what comes with a broken heart, a closed eye, a raised head, and a spirit that fights to the end of the road.”
It was not immediately clear whether Hijazi was working for a particular media organization when he died.
Since the beginning of its war against Gaza on October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 220 journalists and media workers, including Hijazi.
The Ministry of Health reported on Sunday that at least 88 Palestinians were killed and 208 injured in Gaza in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, another baby died from the cold in Gaza, as displaced Palestinians have no warm clothes and are forced to live in tents with little protection from the weather.
The child’s mother told Al Jazeera that her baby Yousef was born healthy, but he became the eighth infant to die in Gaza in recent days due to the cold.
“They didn’t give a second to be happy with my baby,” she said. “He was sleeping next to me and in the morning I found him frozen and dead. I don’t know what to say. No one can feel my misery. No one in the world can understand our catastrophic situation.”
The latest casualties bring the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza to at least 45,805 since October 2023, while an estimated 109,064 have been wounded.
Among those killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Sunday were three Palestinians living in a tent in Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported, reporting from central Gaza.
A family of 15 was also buried under rubble in northwest Gaza City, following a separate strike, Mahmoud reported.
“The Palestinian Civil Defense is doing its best to retrieve the bodies from under the rubble, but they have only removed four members of the family,” he said.
“It is estimated that there are at least 15 family members under the razed three-story building.
“These repeated attacks – targeted against families – continue to take place, causing new tragedies among Palestinians.”
“I refuse to die cheaply… I curse the murderer.”
This morning, the writer and journalist Mohamed Hijazi, the author of these words, was killed by the Israeli army in Beit Lahia, in the north of Gaza. #Genocide in Gaza pic.twitter.com/LWsCak8IPr
— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) January 5, 2025
In the last three days, Israeli forces have killed more than 200 people in Gaza, Mahmoud pointed out.
The last few remaining hospitals across Gaza are now overcrowded, he added.
In the emergency department of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, many people were left on the floor and others were waiting to be admitted to the operating room, Mahmoud said.
“By the time it’s their turn, it’s too late – they’ve already bled to death. [Many] the burns are quite serious, and there are no painkillers in the hospital,” he said.
“A silent death is happening. In the past weeks, due to the ongoing attacks, people are dying silently due to lack of medical supplies.”
On Sunday, Israel’s military claimed to have hit more than 100 “terrorist targets” in the Gaza Strip in the past two days. Several of the strikes targeted sites from which Palestinian fighters have fired missiles at Israel in recent days, the military said.
The latest violence in Gaza comes as indirect negotiations for a prisoner release agreement continued in Qatar.
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been engaged for months in efforts to reach an agreement to end the war and secure the release of dozens of prisoners still held in Gaza.
Israel has imprisoned more than 10,000 Palestinians since it began its devastating war, which has drawn global condemnation. Human rights groups have called Israel’s military offensive genocide, while the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ top court, said in March 2024 that the Israeli operation “probably” amounted to genocide.
In addition, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
