IDF says Al Jazeera cameraman killed in Gaza strike was member of Islamic Jihad
Military says Ahmed Al-Louh, previously a PIJ platoon commander, was situated in compound used to plan attacks; TV network accuses Israel of ‘systematic killing of journalists’

The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that an Al Jazeera cameraman killed in an airstrike in the central Gaza Strip earlier in the day was a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, as the Qatari-funded network condemned the strike.
In a statement, the military said it carried out a drone strike against a group of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror operatives at a command center, based out of the offices of the Gaza civil defense organization in Nuseirat.
“The compound was used by the terrorists to plan and execute terror acts against IDF troops in the immediate time frame,” the military said.
According to the IDF, several terror operatives were killed in the strike, including Ahmad Al-Louh, an Al Jazeera cameraman whom the military accused of previously serving as a platoon commander in Islamic Jihad’s central Gaza brigade.
The IDF said it took steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strike, including by using precision munitions, aerial surveillance and other intelligence.
Al Jazeera, meanwhile, said in a statement that it “condemns in the strongest terms the killing of its cameraman, Ahmad Baker Al-Louh, 39, by the Israeli occupation forces,” whom the network said was “brutally killed in an airstrike that targeted a civil defense post in the market area.”
Al Jazeera Media Network condemns in the strongest terms the killing of its cameraman, Ahmad Baker Al-Louh, 39, by the Israeli occupation forces. https://t.co/g6wqEG0clU
— Al Jazeera PR (@AlJazeera) December 15, 2024
The network added that Louh’s killing came “just days after the targeting of his house” by Israeli forces who “utterly destroyed” it — an accusation to which the IDF did not specifically respond.
The network accused Israel of “systematic killing of journalists in cold blood,” as well as “evasion of responsibilities under international humanitarian law.”
Meanwhile, the strip’s Hamas-governed civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed Louh had been killed in the strike on the Nuseirat camp, which he said also claimed the lives of three members of the rescue agency.
In a statement, Hamas called Louh’s killing an “assassination” and a “war crime,” describing it as “part of a systematic targeting of journalists in Gaza, aimed at intimidating them and deterring them.”
It was not the first time an Al Jazeera employee has been killed by Israeli forces amid the ongoing war in Gaza, which began when the Hamas terror group attacked Israel on October 7 last year, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

In January, Israel said an Al Jazeera staff journalist as well as a freelancer killed in an airstrike in Gaza were terror operatives.
The following month, it accused another journalist with the channel, who was wounded in a separate strike, of being a deputy company commander with Hamas.
And in October, the IDF said it had uncovered documents in Gaza that show six active Al Jazeera reporters were operatives in the Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera has fiercely denied Israel’s allegations and accused it of systematically targeting Al Jazeera employees in the Gaza Strip.
In April, the Israeli government passed an emergency law to take the network off the air and block its broadcasts for violating national security. Courts have since upheld the legislation, citing confidential information.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.