Ahmed Al Shayyah, a 38-year-old Palestinian freelance journalist, who contributed to Al Jazeera and Quds Press Agency, was killed on January 15, 2025, when an Israeli airstrike hit an area where meals for the displaced Gazans are cooked, west of Khan Yunis, according to multiple news reports and his brother, who spoke to CPJ.
Mohammed Al Shayyah, Ahmed’s brother, told CPJ via messaging app that their families “were displaced from our homes at the beginning of the war from the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza and the Zeitoun neighborhood in the southeast of the city, to the center and then the south of the Gaza Strip. Before we were displaced, a brother of ours was martyred along with all of his family members except for one little girl, whom my brother Ahmed took upon himself to care for."
Mohammed Al Shayyah said his brother was in a food distribution area “in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, the Israeli warplanes directly targeted it, which resulted in his direct martyrdom."
Mohammed Al Shayyah said that his family’s displacement tent was near the food distribution area and that he could hear the bombing, but that he didn’t expect the bombs would be aimed at the area “since it is a known place and provides humanitarian services to the displaced.”
Ahmed Al Shayyah was a father of four children.
CPJ emailed the Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk inquiring if it knew civilians and journalists were in the area it bombed and whether Al Shayyah was targeted for his work, but didn’t immediately receive a response.