AFP, Doha

Al Jazeera yesterday rejected Israeli accusations that one of its journalists, killed in Gaza a day earlier, was a Hamas operative, as family and colleagues mourned the cameraman in the Palestinian territory.

The Qatar-based network said in a statement that it “condemns the Israeli occupation army’s baseless accusations, which seek to justify its crimes against Al Jazeera journalists and cameramen in Gaza, most recently the killing of cameraman Ahmed Wishah”.

The Israeli military said in a statement issued late on Saturday that Wishah was killed in a “precise strike” alongside two other Hamas militants and that he had served as a “sniper operative” in Hamas.

The Israeli military provided no evidence to support the accusations.

In its Sunday statement, Al Jazeera said an “Israeli campaign of incitement has relentlessly spread false allegations and baseless accusations against Al Jazeera staff”.

“These attempts deceive no one,” it added.

On Saturday, Al Jazeera reported that Wishah was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the Bureij refugee camp.

Ahmed Wishah’s brother Mohammed Wishah, also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed by Israeli shelling in April, the Qatari broadcaster said at the time.

According to the media rights group Reporters Without Borders, Israeli forces have killed more than 220 journalists since the war in Gaza erupted. At least 70 of them were killed in the context of their professional duties.