Colombian president decries killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza

By Merve Berker

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sunday decried the killing of journalists by Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip.

“108 journalists have been murdered in the Gaza Strip by bombing in their homes,” Petro wrote on X, following the killing of two more journalists, Hamza Wael Al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya, in Israeli attacks.

The two journalists were killed on Sunday as Israeli aircraft hit a vehicle carrying press members on duty in Khan Younis.

The press office of the government in Gaza said that the number of journalists killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli attacks reached 109.

In a statement condemning the Israeli army's attacks on journalists, media units and human rights organizations were called on to condemn the attack and to put pressure on Israel to stop its attacks on the Palestinian people.

Israel has launched air and ground attacks on Gaza following a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, killing at least 22,835 Palestinians and injuring more than 58,400 others.

Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines.

Many international legal experts have said that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute war crimes or genocide, and countries such as Türkiye and South Africa are working to bring legal cases to that effect in international courts.