Israel is using ‘double tap strikes’ to slaughter Palestinian journalists with impunity

On Monday 25 August, Israel killed twenty Palestinian people, including at least five journalists in a ‘double tap strike’ on Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis. The event follows a pattern of behaviour by Israel, targeting hospitals, healthcare workers, and journalists. It has only been fifteen days since Israel killed six journalists, after striking a different hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza City.

ICJP evidence matches the brutal reality of Israel’s murder of Palestinian journalists

The journalists it killed in yesterday’s strike worked with various international news outlets. These included Associated Press, Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye and Reuters. Israel killed another journalist separately in Khan Yunis on the same day.

Al Jazeera now reports that Israel has massacred nearly 270 journalists since October 2023. This is nearly four times as many as were killed in the whole of the Second World War, which lasted more than three times longer than the current genocide in Gaza.

This latest example of systematic targeting of journalists and the healthcare system correlates closely with International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) evidence. Collected by the ICJP Investigations Unit since October 2023, this has documented evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity Israel has conducted in Gaza.

Double tap strikes: deliberate targeting of journalists

Earlier this year, ICJP co-hosted a film screening with Middle East Eye, who some of the journalists killed yesterday worked for. The film was entitled: Under Fire: Israel’s War on Medics. It focused on Israel’s targeting of journalists, and explained Israel’s practice of ‘double tap strikes’. Obviously, this is a cruel irony following yesterday’s events.

‘Double tap strikes’ are when a perpetrator bombs a target, which leads to journalists travelling to the area to report on the strike. The attacker then launches a second bombardment on the same area, in order to target journalists. Israel has regularly used these to murder journalists in Gaza and Lebanon since 2023, and before.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also confirmed that Israel also killed four health-workers in the strike. They had arrived to help those targeted by the initial attack.

The ICJP therefore argues that the UK must urgently implement sanctions on Israeli political and military leaders in a systematic manner. It must do so in order to curtail the carte blanche impunity they have enjoyed since October 2023, which has enabled them to carry out war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal acts with impunity.

Featured image via the Canary