The day after the assassination of Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat, the Israeli military openly celebrated his killing. A correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher and a contributor to Drop Site News, Shabat was killed on March 24 when the Israeli military targeted him as he was driving in his car in Beit Lahia. He was 23 years old. Earlier that day, journalist Mohamed Mansour of Palestine Today was killed, along with his wife and son, in an Israeli airstrike on his home in Khan Younis.
On its official X account the following day, the Israeli military confirmed it had “eliminated” Shabat, claiming they had “exposed” his role within Hamas six months earlier, and the statement concluded with the haunting words: “Don’t let the press vest confuse you, Hossam was a terrorist.”
The Israeli military was referring to its outrageous accusation, in October 2024, that Shabat and five other journalists—all of whom work for Al Jazeera—were fighters in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The statement also said that most of them were working in northern Gaza: an area where only a handful of journalists had remained, and where Israel had launched a concentrated extermination campaign earlier that month. At the time, Shabat and his colleagues, those who remained in the north, were on the ground, providing constant coverage to document Israeli atrocities. ….more
