Five Al Quds Today TV journalists who doubled as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists were killed in a targeted strike carried out by the Israel Air Force near the Nuesirat area of Gaza overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, the IDF said on Thursday afternoon.
The IDF statement confirming the event came after Arab media outlets reported that five journalists working for the Palestinian news outlet were killed. The reports did not note their PIJ affiliations.
One of the sources the IDF said it used to confirm the identity of the terrorists it struck was taken from a list of PIJ operatives discovered by Israel's military during previous operations in the Gaza Strip.
The IDF listed the names of the terrorists and what their roles in the terror group were.
Who were the terrorists killed in the strike?
The IDF said Ibrahim Jamal Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Ali was a PIJ operation and combat propaganda operative.
Faisal Abdallah Muhammad Abu Qamsan was the Head of Security for the Islamic Jihad in Nuseirat.
Mohammed Ayad Khamis al-Lada’a was an Islamic Jihad combat propagandist.
Ayman Nihad Abd Alrahman Jadi is an Islamic Jihad combat propagandist and former Islamic Jihad naval operative.
Fadi Ihab Muhammad Ramadan Hassouna, Islamic Jihad combat propagandist in Nuseirat.
Reuters reported that Gaza health authorities said at least ten people, including the five journalists, were killed during both of Israel's strikes.
The health authorities in Gaza, such as the Health Ministry and the civil services in the Strip, are operated by Hamas.
Reports on the strikes
The Reuters report added that the deaths occurred in two separate incidents, with the first killing five and wounding 20 in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood.
The second incident reportedly killed the five journalists when their vehicle was struck in the Nuesirat area.
The report also added that the van the journalists were in was allegedly marked as a media van.
The IDF has yet to comment on reports the journalists were hit in a strike.
Additional IDF action in Gaza
The IAF conducted additional strikes in Gaza, killing senior Hamas terrorists, Israel's military said on Thursday morning.
Among the Hamas terrorists killed were Muhammad Jamil Salman Basous and Muhammad Kamal Muhammad Al-Haj.
The IDF said that Basous was a senior commander in the engineering unit of Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade and was "responsible for supplying explosives to terrorist operatives and stored explosive materials inside his house."
It added that Al-Haj served as a Nukhba company commander in the Zeitoun Battalion and carried out sniper attacks for Hamas against IDF troops.
Additionally, the terrorist Mahmoud Jamil Salman Basous was killed in the strikes. Mahmoud was a platoon commander in Hamas’s Shejaiya Battalion and the brother of the aformentioned Muhammad Jamil Salman Basous.
Furthermore, on Wednesday, IDF and IAF artillery reportedly struck Hamas terrorists in the area of Gaza City.
The military noted that the terrorists it hit exploited the area to "plan and execute an explosive drone attack against IDF troops in an imminent time frame" but that, prior to the strike, "numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians."
