TEL AVIV - Israeli fighter jets demolished a multi-story building in Gaza City on Saturday, sparking outrage between news outlets and concerns from the White House as violence continues to plague Israel and Palestinian territories.
The conflict continued unabated as violence erupted in the second week. Rockets from Gaza bombed Israeli cities, and civil strife plagued Israel and the West Bank. Warnings were sounded in Tel Aviv and in the southern parts of Israel.
A total of 139 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health. A strike on Friday night at al-Shati refugee camp killed 10 members of one family, eight of whom were children, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Five children attended one of the agency's schools, he said, adding that 13 of his school children had been killed. An Israeli military spokesman said the incident was being investigated and officials would issue a statement soon.
Gaza, Israeli warning, airstrike gets angry as media hub is destroyed
In Israel, one person has died after two rockets fell in Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv, according to paramedics, which killed at least 10 people in Israel.
The Israeli military said a multi-storey building in Gaza City that housed the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other media outlets was also used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including intelligence and research and development offices. The military has criticized the military for using the media as “human protection.”
Journalists and others received warning calls from Israeli military operations giving them about an hour to clear the building. Many offices were closed for the Eid holiday, marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and journalists had no access to notes, records and laptops before the noon strike measured the building.
The move has raised concerns that the media may find it extremely difficult to report incidents in Gaza, where military attacks threaten a social crisis and foreign journalists are barred from entering because checkpoints are closed.
"The world will know a little bit about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today," AP president and chief executive Gary Pruitt said in a statement.
President Biden raised the issue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over a phone call on Saturday. "He expressed concern about the safety and security of journalists and emphasized the need to ensure their safety," White House summed up their conversation. The President also expressed his support for Israel to protect itself from more than 2,200 rockets from Gaza and "noted that the current era of conflict has claimed the lives of Israeli and Palestinian people, including children."
"Ensuring the safety and security of journalists and the independent media is a daunting task," said White House News Secretary Jen Psaki.
Mohammed Ali, an assistant to Al Jazeera's office, said he and other staff members fled the building when a warning came from Israel an hour before the strike. But they went back and tried to retrieve something that could not be put in place: the office museums.
"There are thousands of hours of videos and photos," he said. “We were able to get it out, not even half of it. We tried our best, but in the end we were scared for our lives, ”he said. If there was a Hamas office in the building, he would not know about it, he said. The building had medical and legal offices and living quarters, he said.
The military strike came at a time when the funerals of 11 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers during the fighting in the West Bank on Friday and early Saturday as the area emerged as a new phase.
In Israel, natives held another night of violence between Arab and Jewish citizens. In Jaffa, Israeli police say they are investigating the attack on a 12-year-old boy who was reportedly a molotov cocktail thrown into his lounge window.
Meanwhile, Israeli Arabs gathered for Nakba Day, an annual event marking the migration of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians when Israel was founded in 1948. (Nakba means disaster or disaster in Arabic). At noon, there was a commotion in the center of Ramallah, a large West Bank city, marking the event.
"I think the Palestinian people have little to do with remembering the Nakba right now and more about remembering the ongoing Nakba," said Mariam Barghouti, a Palestinian writer and activist in Ramallah. "That's the difference now."
In Sakhnin, a city in northern Israel, many Palestinian flags flashed through the crowd of about 5,000 people who had gathered in Nakba. Crowds, mostly wrapped in black and white kaffiyeh, marched from a mosque to a municipal building chanting slogans as families lined the road.
"We live in Nakba," said Kristen Ghnaiem, 25. "It goes on. We live in another."
Journalists in Gaza City described the incident in connection with the demolition of their offices.
Al Jazeera broadcast photos of the owner of the building trying to negotiate a phone call with an Israeli official to get an extra 10 minutes ahead of a strike to get camera equipment. Those in the building were given more than an hour's warning, but he said reporters had been outside their offices broadcasting.
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