Two Al Jazeera journalists working in Gaza have been killed in an Israeli airstrike, the Qatari TV network has claimed.

Reporter Ismail al Ghoul and cameraman Rami al Refee had been on an assignment to film near the house of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh when they died, according to the pair’s colleague Anas Al Sharif.

The two men and a child, who was not identified, had been travelling in a car which was struck by a blast in Gaza City, said the network and ambulance service.

The AP news agency said the pair were reporting at the Shati urban refugee camp, the birthplace of Haniyeh.

The Israeli army has not immediately commented on the journalists’ deaths.

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Haniyeh was killed in Iran’s capital Tehran earlier on Wednesday in an attack which Hamas blamed on Israel.

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Their deaths bring the total number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israel’s nearly 10-month offensive in Gaza to 165, said the Hamas-run government media office.

More than 39,400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a retaliatory offensive against Hamas after the militant group massacred 1,200 people in southern Israel on 7 October and took more than 250 hostages.

Al Jazeera managing editor Mohamed Moawad said in a post on X that Mr Ghoul was killed “while courageously covering the events in northern Gaza”.

“Ismail was renowned for his professionalism and dedication, bringing the world’s attention to the suffering and atrocities committed in Gaza,” he said.

Mr Ghoul was described as a “determined journalist who refused to succumb to hunger, illness, and the loss of his brother,” as he “relentlessly covered the events and delivered the reality of Gaza to the world through Al Jazeera”.

A post on Mr Ghoul’s X account showed the ruins of Haniyeh’s house.

The journalists’ deaths come amid heightened tensions in the Middle East after a separate Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday killed Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah military commander.

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Israel blamed him for the rocket attack last weekend that killed 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

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