An Israeli airstrike killed an Al Jazeera journalist on Monday as the military escalated its bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza while ordering new evacuations in the enclave’s north.
Israel resumed intense airstrikes across Gaza last Tuesday, followed by ground operations, after talks on extending a cease-fire with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas reached an impasse.
On Monday evening, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued "an early warning before a strike" in the northern area of Jabalia.
Earlier, Gaza's civil defense agency said an Israeli drone strike Monday afternoon killed Hussam Shabat, who was working with Al Jazeera, near a petrol station in Beit Lahia.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency, said airstrikes had targeted more than 10 cars, including Shabat's, in various parts of Gaza.
"Hussam Shabat, a journalist collaborating with Al Jazeera Mubasher, was martyred in an Israeli strike targeting his car in the northern Gaza Strip," an alert from the Qatari broadcaster said, referring to its live Arabic channel.
AFPTV footage from the scene in Beit Lahia showed Palestinians gathering around the car, which had an Al Jazeera sticker on its windscreen. A body could be seen on the ground nearby.
According to the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel's military in October accused Shabat and five other Palestinian journalists of being militants, which he denied.
Hundreds of people attended Shabat's funeral held at Beit Lahia's Indonesian Hospital, praying over his body, which still wore a press flak jacket.
The civil defense agency said a media worker from Islamic Jihad-affiliated Palestine Today TV, Muhammad Mansour, was killed in a separate airstrike in Gaza's south.
In a statement, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate called the deaths of Shabat and Mansour "a crime added to the record of Israeli terrorism."
It said that more than 206 journalists and media workers had been killed since the start of the war, which was triggered by the Hamas incursion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Oct. 7 incursion caused 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures, while Israel's genocidal Gaza war has killed at least 50,082 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the territory's Health Ministry.
The ministry said Monday that 730 people had been killed since Israel resumed bombardments on March 18, including 57 in the past 24 hours.
Resistance groups also seized 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 58 of whom are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Hamas' armed wing released a video Monday showing two Israeli hostages – identified by AFP as Elkana Bohbot and Yosef Haim Ohana – describing the danger they have faced since the resumption of intense Israeli strikes.
Bohbot's family reacted to the video with a statement appealing to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump to secure the remaining hostages' release.
"Imagine this is your son, the father of your grandchild, waiting to see daylight, hearing (Israeli army) bombs, and living in constant fear for his life," the statement said.
Israel's military said it intercepted a total of three "projectiles" launched from the Gaza Strip Monday evening. The armed wing of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said it had launched rockets toward Israel.
The military also said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, the sixth since the resumption of Gaza hostilities.
The Houthis later claimed responsibility for two missiles, saying they would "target the heartland of the occupying entity until the aggression stops and the siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted."
The Houthi news agency Saba late Monday reported 12 U.S. airstrikes "in the last few hours" in northwest Yemen.
The Israel military said Tuesday it had again struck two military bases in central Syria, a day after the European Union's foreign policy chief warned strikes there and in Lebanon risked escalation.
"A short while ago, the IDF struck military capabilities that remained at the Syrian military bases of Tadmur and T4," the Israeli military said, referring to bases in Palmyra and another 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the city.
On Monday during a visit to Jerusalem, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned that Israeli strikes on Syria and Lebanon were threatening to worsen the situation.
"Military actions must be proportionate, and Israeli strikes into Syria and Lebanon risk further escalation," Kallas said.
Meanwhile, the municipality of the southern Gaza city of Rafah said in a statement Monday that "thousands of civilians" were "trapped under intense Israeli shelling" in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood.
It added that all communications were cut with the neighborhood and that the local health care system had "entirely collapsed."
On Sunday, the military said it had encircled Tal al-Sultan to "dismantle ... infrastructure and eliminate" resistance members there.
The Defense Ministry also announced the creation of an administration dedicated to the "voluntary departure of Gaza residents to a third country," drawing outrage from Egypt.
Egypt, which borders Gaza and Israel, expressed "its strong condemnation" of the creation of this authority, the Foreign Ministry said on X.
