Strike on AFP's Gaza bureau causes significant damage

Agence France-Presse’s Gaza City bureau was significantly damaged by a strike on the building, according to a staff member who visited Friday as the Israeli military relentlessly pounds the territory.

AFP is the only one of the world’s three major international news agencies currently operating a live video feed from Gaza City, which has not been interrupted despite the damage.

The unmanned AFP camera broadcasting live 24/7 captured the moment of the strike, a few minutes before midday (1000 GMT) on Thursday.

An AFP employee who visited the office on Friday said an explosive projectile appeared to have entered the technician’s office in the bureau horizontally from east to west.

The strike destroyed the wall opposite the window and caused significant damage to the adjacent room and other doors. It also punctured water tanks on the roof.

An Israeli military spokesman said the force had “checked (the report) multiple times”.

“There was no IDF (Israeli military) strike on the building” in Gaza, he told AFP.

Images published by AFP on Friday show a gaping hole in the wall of the 11-floor building in the west of Gaza’s Rimal neighborhood, near the port.

“AFP condemns in the strongest possible terms this strike on its Gaza City bureau,” said Fabrice Fries, AFP chairman and chief executive.

“The location of this bureau is known to everyone and has been pointed out several times over the past few days, precisely to prevent such an attack and to allow us to continue to provide images on the ground.

“The consequences of such an attack would have been devastating if the AFP team on the ground had not evacuated the city,” said Fries.

‘Dangerous conditions’ –

None of AFP’s eight staff usually based in Gaza City were in the bureau at the moment of the strike.

The team was evacuated to southern Gaza on October 13, following an Israeli military order directed at residents in the north of the Hamas-run territory.

Asked about the attack during a news conference in Tel Aviv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that journalists in Gaza must be protected as they report on the war.

“It’s vitally important how Israel does this (conducts the war), including with the highest regard for the protection of civilians, and that of course includes journalists,” Blinken told journalists.

He said journalists were “doing extraordinary work under the most dangerous conditions to tell the story to the world”.

In May 2021, during a previous Hamas-Israel war, the Israeli military completely destroyed a 13-floor building which hosted the US agency Associated Press (AP) and Qatar’s Al Jazeera.

Israel at the time said targeting the building was “perfectly legitimate” as it was based on information from its intelligence service.

The ongoing war erupted when Hamas militants crossed from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.

More than 9,200 people have been killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes unleashed to “crush” Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the health ministry in the Palestinian territory says.