A recently married cameraman who worked for CBS was among three Palestinian journalists killed in an airstrike in Gaza on Wednesday — with Israel accusing them of operating a “drone affiliated with Hamas.”
The trio was struck while traveling in a car in the Al-Zahra area just outside Gaza City.
One, Abed Shaat, had worked as a cameraman at CBS for several years and was a regular contributor to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
He had only just tied the knot two weeks before his death, CBS reported.
The other two were Mohammed Salah Qashta and Anas Ghanem.
Israel’s military said it ordered the strike after spotting several suspects operating a drone that posed a threat to its troops.
“Following the identification and due to the threat that the drone posed to the troops, the IDF precisely struck the suspects who activated the drone,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
Video footage from the scene showed the charred and smoking vehicle by the roadside in the wake of the strike.
The three men were attempting to take images of a new aid distribution set up by the Egyptian Relief Committee, according to Palestinian media and the committee chairman, Mohammed Mansour, who claimed that Israel’s military knew the struck vehicle belonged to the committee.
Shaat was a freelance cameraman contracted by CBS.
“His work was distinctive because of its technical prowess under the most unimaginable circumstances,” CBS News London producer Kamal Afzali said, adding that he was “an eyewitness to extreme pain with the superhuman power to document it.”
The IDF, meanwhile, said the details of the strike were under examination.
With Post wires
