An analysis by Reuters of visual evidence and additional information about last month’s Israeli attack on a Gaza hospital challenges Israel’s account of the event.
The August 25th strike on Nasser Hospital resulted in the deaths of 22 people, including five journalists. Israeli forces had planned the attack using drone footage, which a military official claimed showed a Hamas camera, the intended target. However, Reuters’ investigation reveals that the camera belonged to their own journalist.
The Israeli military now admits troops acted without the required approval from the senior regional commander overseeing operations in Gaza. This admission follows Reuters’ presentation of its findings to the Israel Defense Forces.
Stay informed with the latest updates. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.
A day after the tank shelling, the IDF’s initial review suggested troops targeted a Hamas camera filming them from the hospital, suspected due to its towel covering. A decision was made to destroy it, the official said.
A screenshot from IDF drone footage shows the camera draped with a two-toned cloth on the hospital stairwell. Last week, a military official confirmed to Reuters that this cloth-covered camera was the target.
Contrary to claims, the cloth was not placed by Hamas. It was a prayer rug belonging to Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters journalist killed in the attack, according to Reuters’ investigation.
Since May, Masri had frequently positioned his camera on the same stairwell to record live broadcasts for Reuters’ global media clients. He often covered his camera with the prayer rug to protect it from heat and dust, Reuters found.
The Reuters investigation provides the most comprehensive account to date of the attack, including the breach in the chain of command by Israeli forces. Reuters also confirmed the targeted camera belonged to them.
The Associated Press, which also lost a journalist in the attack, had reported strong indications that the camera targeted by Israeli forces was Reuters’.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the hospital attack as a “tragic mishap.” The military official told Reuters that Masri and other journalists were not the intended targets and were not suspected of Hamas ties.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza media office, called the IDF’s claim that Hamas was filming from Nasser Hospital “false and fabricated,” accusing Israel of covering up a war crime against the hospital and its occupants.
Despite these revelations, a month after the attack, the IDF has not fully explained hitting the Reuters camera and killing Masri. The Israeli military has not clarified:
* Why no warning was given to hospital staff or Reuters about the strike.
* Why the IDF shelled the stairwell again nine minutes after the initial attack, killing additional journalists and first responders.
* Whether they considered the stairwell’s regular use by journalists during the war.
* Who authorized the attack without the regional commander’s approval.
The lack of a detailed explanation for the Nasser Hospital attack follows a pattern in Israeli military actions that have resulted in journalist casualties since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports 201 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon, including 193 Palestinians in Gaza, six in Lebanon, and two Israelis on October 7.
The CPJ states Israel has not published formal investigation results or held anyone accountable for journalist killings by the IDF. “None of these incidents prompted a meaningful review of Israel’s rules of engagement or led to changes in the pattern of attacks on journalists over the past two years,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The IDF aims to minimize civilian harm, including to journalists,” an IDF spokesperson said. “Remaining in an active combat zone carries inherent risks. The IDF targets only military threats, not civilian objects or journalists.”
The camera in crosshairs
In analyzing the August 25 attack, Reuters reviewed over 100 videos and photos from the scene and interviewed over two dozen people familiar with the incident. Sources included two Israeli military officials and two military academics briefed on the strike.
Overall, 22 people died in the attacks, including journalist Mariam Dagga from the Associated Press and freelance journalist Moaz Abu Taha, who worked with Reuters. Dagga and Masri were among journalists who regularly gathered on the stairwell to report from Khan Younis in Gaza. Masri’s broadcasts captured Israeli strikes, ambulance arrivals, and surrounding destruction.
Days before the strike, an Israeli drone recorded a camera on the hospital’s eastern stairwell, according to an Israeli military official citing the IDF’s initial inquiry. Troops deemed the camera a threat, as Hamas has used cameras for attack planning. A Hamas official confirmed their use of cameras to document attacks on Israeli soldiers.
A drone footage screenshot shows a person with a white headscarf near the camera, covered by a two-toned cloth. The screenshot was first published on August 25 by Israeli TV channel N12, claiming it showed a camera “endangering our troops.”
Reuters obtained the screenshot from Refael Hayun, an Israeli civilian monitoring the Gaza situation. Hayun said the footage was captured around 2:15 p.m. on August 21. On that day, Masri set up a camera from 8:00 a.m. to 6:14 p.m., according to Reuters’ archive.
Hayun did not disclose his source for the screenshot. The Israeli military confirmed it came from drone footage recorded before the August 25 strike, showing the targeted camera. The official, citing the IDF’s initial inquiry, did not specify the screenshot date but said the camera was seen repeatedly.
“That camera was the one attacked,” the military official told Reuters on September 16.
A drone, a stairwell, a prayer rug
The cloth covering Masri’s camera attracted attention after the strike, both for its role in justifying the attack and as evidence of the camera’s true ownership.
The day after the strike, the military official called the cloth a “towel,” saying troops viewed it suspiciously. Towels can evade IDF sensors, he said, without elaborating.
However, the cloth was Masri’s prayer rug, Reuters found, as shown in an August 13 photo by Dagga. The photo shows Masri next to his camera in the stairwell targeted by the IDF.
Masri routinely covered the Reuters camera to protect it from August’s heat in Gaza, according to three Reuters visuals team members. He often used his prayer rug, confirmed by his brother, Ezzeldeen al-Masri. Reuters was never advised by Israel about covering the camera.
Witnesses say the camera in the screenshot could only be Masri’s. No other journalists used a large camera or covered it with a prayer rug. Others used phones, witnesses said.
Troops’ suspicion also arose from another “towel” covering a nearby person’s head, the military official said.
The IDF footage shows a person in dark clothing with a white headscarf near the camera, identified by Mohammad Salem, a Reuters journalist, as Dagga from AP. Dagga was recording near Masri days before the attack.
On August 25, Masri had been recording from the stairwell for about two hours. He positioned his camera on the fourth floor for better visibility and internet connection, Salem said. The stairwell provided a vantage point over the hospital and busy street.
A hub for journalists
“We thought the hospital was relatively safe, as everyone knows journalists gather here daily,” Salem said.
During the war’s early days, Reuters shared Gaza team locations, including Nasser Hospital, with the Israeli military to avoid targeting, a spokesperson said. But after numerous journalist deaths, Reuters stopped sharing precise locations.
“Israel knew Reuters and other media operated from Nasser Hospital, a key coverage center,” the spokesperson said.
Witnesses reported IDF drones overhead during the attack. About 40 minutes before the first strike, Reuters photographer Hatem Khaled noted a drone over Nasser Hospital in a WhatsApp group message.
At 10:12 a.m., four minutes after the first attack, freelance journalist Khaled Shaath recorded a quadcopter over the hospital.
Ahmed Abu Ubeid, a doctor injured in the second strike, said a drone hovered near the entrance for over 10 minutes, observing doctors, journalists, and emergency responders. “They saw us and decided to hit us,” he told Reuters.
Some victims were on the ground floor, far below the tank strikes, and were hit by shrapnel, he said.
Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted Gaza hospitals, accusing them of hosting Hamas operations, which the group denies.
Hospital attacks often constitute war crimes, say legal scholars. There’s a narrow exception if a hospital is used for “harmful enemy activity,” said Stanford Law School’s Tom Dannenbaum. Even then, attackers must ensure civilian harm isn’t excessive and must warn the other side to cease misuse, he said.
Mohammed Saqer, Nasser Hospital’s head of nursing, said the IDF had staff phone numbers and often called the hospital head about patient numbers and supplies. No attack warning was received, he said.
“A warning could have prevented this catastrophe,” Saqer told Reuters via text. Reuters also received no warning, a spokesperson said.
Unexplained killings
The deaths of Masri, 49, Dagga, 33, and three other journalists in the August 25 attack contribute to a long list of journalist deaths during the Israeli offensive, with circumstances rarely clarified by the IDF.
Reuters still lacks an explanation for the October 2023 Israeli tank strike that killed journalist Issam Abdallah in Lebanon. The attack remains under examination nearly two years later, an IDF official told Reuters. Hostilities spread to the Israel-Lebanon border after the October 7 Hamas attack.
The list of unexplained IDF journalist killings extends prior to the Gaza war.
In May 2022, Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, wearing a press vest, was shot dead during an Israeli army raid in Jenin. Israeli authorities initially blamed armed Palestinians. Later, they concluded a “high possibility” she was “accidentally hit by IDF gunfire.” No criminal investigation was launched.
Al Jazeera condemned her killing as a “heinous crime” intended to “prevent media duty.” In May 2023, an IDF spokesperson expressed regret for her death. No full account of her killing has been provided.
After the deaths of Abdallah and Abu Akleh, Israel stated its forces do not intentionally target journalists.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has accused at least 15 journalists killed in Gaza and Lebanon of militant ties, according to CPJ data. The CPJ found no credible evidence to support these claims.
The military official who spoke to Reuters after the Nasser attack stressed the IDF did not target Reuters or AP journalists. “They are a big reason we’re investigating this incident,” he said. “There was no intention to harm them.”
That day, the IDF named six “terrorists” killed in the hospital strikes, without evidence.
One man, Omar Abu Teim, was killed elsewhere, not in the August 25 attack, said Al-Thawabta of the Hamas-run media office.
Another man was a first responder, identified in Palestinian Civil Defense footage from August 25, seen aiding the emergency response. His body hung from a fourth-floor ledge after the second strike.
A third was hospital staff, per Nasser Hospital’s Facebook post.
Two others were visiting patients and aiding rescue efforts when killed in the second strike, family members said, denying militant ties.
Reuters found no details on the sixth man, except confirmation of his death in the strikes.
A breach of command
The day after the attack, a military official told Reuters that troops identified a threatening camera days before the strike, and actions were approved to “remove the threat.” The IDF later identified the involved troops as the Golani Brigade.
Masri’s recordings captured scenes around Nasser Hospital, with some shots showing distant military activity. On August 20-21, the camera recorded Israeli excavations 2.4 kilometers northeast, surrounded by tanks not visible in Masri’s footage.
An Israeli military official cited the IDF’s initial review, stating troops identified the attack target correctly. However, the IDF is examining potential execution errors.
“We’re investigating to understand execution errors against a real threat,” he said.
Reuters found a breach in the command chain as one failure.
IDF rules require a senior officer’s approval to fire on a civilian target if not under attack, said the military official. For Nasser Hospital, ground forces needed authorization from the IDF’s Southern Command head, Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor. Approval was not obtained, the official said. Asor declined to comment to the press.
Authorization would include a legal assessment ensuring target compliance with international law, a second military official said. Such assessments are binding, and attacks should not proceed without them. The official was unaware of any legal advisory before the Nasser attack.
In addition to execution errors, the IDF is reviewing ammunition approved and its approval process.
Photos of metal fragments from Nasser Hospital, taken by a doctor, were reviewed by five munitions experts. They identified the fragments as parts of Israeli-made 120 mm tank rounds.
A similar shell was used in the 2023 attack that killed Reuters journalist Abdallah in Lebanon.
A tank round was disproportionate for the Nasser strike, given the target was a camera in a hospital, said Wes Bryant, a former Pentagon civilian harm adviser. Even less lethal weapons would have high casualties in a crowded stairwell, Bryant noted.
The IDF has not explained why it struck the stairwell again as journalists and first responders gathered.
Reuters photographer Khaled was outside the hospital starting his workday when the first blast hit. He rushed inside, documenting the scene, and found Masri dead, covered in dust.
Khaled kept filming. “I couldn’t help him except by documenting,” he said. Rescue workers moved Masri, placing him in a white bag.
At 10:17 a.m., as Khaled and rescuers carried Masri’s body, the stairwell was struck again.
Footage obtained by Reuters shows two munitions hitting the hospital almost simultaneously. Khaled filmed the strike, sustaining injuries. He now has hearing loss and requires more surgery.
