Al Jazeera rejects Israeli accusations against journalist killed in Gaza

Al Jazeera on Sunday rejected Israeli accusations that one of its journalists, killed in Gaza a day earlier, was a Hamas operative, as family and colleagues mourned the cameraman in the Palestinian territory.

The Qatar-based network said in a statement that it "condemns the Israeli occupation army's baseless accusations, which seek to justify its crimes against Al Jazeera journalists and cameramen in Gaza, most recently the killing of cameraman Ahmed Wishah".

The Israeli military said in a statement issued late on Saturday that Wishah was killed in a "precise strike" alongside two other Hamas militants and that he had served as a "sniper operative" in Hamas.

"Alongside his work as an Al Jazeera photojournalist in recent years, Wishah was an operative in Hamas' military wing," the military said.

When contacted by AFP an Israeli military spokesman provided no evidence to support the accusations against Wishah.

AFP footage captured in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza showed friends and family grieving over Wishah's lifeless body in the area's Al-Aqsa Hospital.

The cameraman could be seen laid out on a steel tray in the hospital's morgue in a cabinet with other bodies.

Bilal Abu Samak, a freelance journalist in Gaza said the killing had left him "in shock".

"For the first time, I found myself unable to film. The occupation deliberately kills journalists and anyone covering events on the ground," Samak added.

In its Sunday statement, Al Jazeera said an "Israeli campaign of incitement has relentlessly spread false allegations and baseless accusations against Al Jazeera staff".

The network called the effort a "smear campaign" and "a transparent and futile attempt to justify the deliberate targeting of journalists and cameramen".

On Saturday, Al Jazeera reported that Wishah was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the Bureij refugee camp.

Ahmed Wishah's brother Mohammed Wishah, also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed by Israeli shelling in April, the Qatari broadcaster said at the time.

According to the media rights group Reporters Without Borders, Israeli forces have killed more than 220 journalists since the war in Gaza erupted. At least 70 of them were killed in the context of their professional duties.

The Israeli military has said it does not deliberately target journalists.