GAZA – Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera said Israeli forces had beaten and arrested its correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul during a raid on March 18 on Gaza’s largest hospital.

The Israeli army said it was battling Hamas militants at the Al-Shifa hospital, with witnesses reporting air strikes and tanks near the facility that was crowded with patients and displaced people.

“The occupation army severely beat Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul before arresting him from inside Al-Shifa medical complex in Gaza,” Al Jazeera said in a post on X.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An Al Jazeera source told Agence France-Presse that five other people were also arrested, including Mr Ghoul’s camera crew and engineers.

The source, who was not authorised to brief the press and spoke on condition of anonymity, said an Israeli tank destroyed the vehicle Mr Ghoul and his team were using.

In February, the network accused Israel of systematically targeting Al Jazeera employees working in Gaza.

As at March 18, at least 95 journalists and media workers had been confirmed dead in the Israel-Hamas war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), citing “preliminary investigations”.

Of those, 90 were Palestinians, CPJ said.

Two Al Jazeera journalists have been killed during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, while bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh was wounded.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 31,726 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. AFP