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Israel-Gaza crisis: Bomb disposal experts and journalists among six killed and four wounded in operation to defuse Israeli shell Israel-Gaza crisis: Bomb disposal experts and journalists among five killed and four wounded in operation to defuse Israeli shell
(about 3 hours later)
A bomb disposal expert who said his wife feared he would “come home in a box” died in Gaza on Wednesday, along with two of his colleagues, an Italian journalist and his Palestinian translator, and one other person, according to Gaza officials. Three Palestinian members of a local bomb-disposal team and two journalists –including an Italian working with the Associated Press – were killed today while the sappers were trying to defuse unexploded ordnance left by the month-long war in Gaza.
Four others, including Associated Press (AP)news agency photographer Hatem Moussa, were badly injured. The journalists were covering the disposal team’s operations to remove and neutralise an estimated 2,000 items of unexploded ordnance. The team’s task is especially dangerous because the members have no protective clothing or remote control and X-ray devices.
The group were hit at around 10:30am when the head of Gaza’s only bomb disposal unit, 43-year-old Rahed Taysir al’Hom, was attempting to defuse a 500kg Israeli shell in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, the Guardian reported. The five men were killed – along with four others, including an AP photographer, Hatem Moussa, who were seriously injured – on the third day of the latest 72-hour ceasefire as Egypt’s mediators between Israel and Hamas were leading efforts in Cairo to reach a durable peace agreement.
The Palestinian officials had seized a three-day ceasefire, in effect since Monday, to search for unexploded munitions in the area. AP video journalist Simone Camilli, his translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash, and Moussa were reporting on the operation when they were caught in the explosion. Associated Press photographer Hatem Moussa holds his camera, in Gaza City (AP) Palestinian negotiators were reportedly seeking some improvements to an Egyptian proposal under which Israel would offer some easing of the seven-year blockade of Gaza. The proposal would leave key issues like the Palestinians’ demand for a full end to the blockade – and a sea port in Gaza – and Israel’s for the “demilitarisation” of the Strip, to future talks.
Moussa explained to a colleague that he was hit by shrapnel during an initial blast. He began to flee when a second device exploded – knocking him unconscious. He was later to taken to hospital where he was operated upon. Those killed were named by medics as: the Italian video journalist Simone Camilli, 35; a Palestinian freelance translator and journalist who was working with him, Ali Shehda Abu Afash, 36; and three disposal engineers, Hazem Abu Murad, Bilal Mohamed al Sultan, and Taysir al Houm. Mr Abu Murad, 39, led the 70 disposal engineers in Gaza and although employed by the de facto Hamas government, had EU and US training and had worked under the old Fatah regime.
Associated Press photographer Hatem Moussa holds his camera, in Gaza City (AP) Gaza's police force said it was mourning the deaths of the head of the local bomb squad, his deputy and another officer.
“I try to do as much as I can. Every time I hear that someone has been injured by a bomb on the ground I feel very sorry,” Taysir al’Hom had told the Guardian at the weekend. He added that his already difficult task was worsened by a lack of proper equipment.
“My wife thinks I will come home one day in pieces in a box,” he said three days before he died.
35-year-old Camilli is the first foreign journalist to be killed in the Gaza conflict, which has taken more than 1,900 Palestinian lives and 67 on the Israeli side.
(From left) Translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash, and video journalist Simone Camilli (AP/Reuters)(From left) Translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash, and video journalist Simone Camilli (AP/Reuters)
The Italian national had worked for the US news agency since 2005 - relocating to Jerusalem in 2006. In recent months, he had been based in Beirut, returning to report in Gaza after the war broke out last month. At Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, an eye-witness with shrapnel injuries, Yahya al Zani, 20, said he had been to pick up his high school graduation results and was waiting for a taxi in northern Beit Lahiya when he saw the team about 20 metres away, including a man who was working on what appeared to be a tank shell.
He leaves behind a longtime partner and a 3-year-old daughter in Beirut, as well as his father, Pier Luigi, in Italy. “Some other guys were photographing as they were trying to defuse it,” he said. “Then there was a big explosion and I saw five or six bodies.” The AP photographer Hatem Moussa – who had on occasions taken pictures for The Independent over the past decade – underwent abdominal surgery in Shifa and was also being treated for leg and head injuries.
His translator, 36-year-old Gaza resident Abu Afash, often worked with the international media as a translator and news assistant. He leaves behind a wife and two daughters, aged 5 and 6. Simone Camilli pictured on Monday, 11 August in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, where he died aged 35. At Beit Lahiya’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, where the dead and injured were initially taken, Mr Abu Murad’s brother Majdi, beside himself with grief, said as he was embraced by a doctor offering condolences: “Doctor, you knew him. Please bring my brother back to me.” Hanin Othman, a colleague of Mr Abu Afash who worked at the local branch of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom, wept as she said: “He was like family. He was my brother, my friend.”
Simone Camilli pictured on Monday, 11 August in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, where he died aged 35. In Italy, foreign minister Federica Mogherini, sent the government’s condolences to Camilli’s family, and said his death underlined the urgency of finding a lasting solution to conflict in the Middle East.
“Once again, a journalist pays the price for a war that has gone on for too long, and for the second time in a few months we weep for the death of someone who was courageously working as a reporter,” Mogherini said in a statement.
Camilli is the 33rd AP staffer to die in pursuit of the news since AP was founded in 1846, and the second this year. On April 4, AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus was killed and veteran AP correspondent Kathy Gannon was badly wounded by a gunman in Afghanistan.
Additional reporting by agencies