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

This French news agency 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 camera broadcasting live 24/7 captured the moment of the strike, a few minutes before midday (10pm local time) on Thursday.

An 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 said.

Images published on Friday show a gaping hole in the wall of the 11-storey building in the west of Gaza’s Rimal neighbourhood, 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.

Asked about the attack during a news conference in Tel Aviv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on 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, the Israeli military completely destroyed a 13-floor building which hosted the US agency Associated Press (AP) and Qatar’s Al Jazeera.

‘Israeli bombardment’

On Thursday, another Palestinian journalist working for a television channel was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza, his network reported.

“Our colleague Mohammed Abu Hatab fell as a martyr along with members of his family in an Israeli bombardment against his home in Khan Yunis” in the south of the territory, broadcaster Palestine TV station said.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2023