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| This Monday, Aug. 11 2014 photo shows Associated Press video journalist Simone Camilli in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip. Camilli, 35, was killed in an ordnance explosion in the Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014 together with Palestinian translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash and three members of the Gaza police. Police said four other people were seriously injured, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa |
GAZA CITY, Gaza
Strip (AP) -- Six people - including an Associated Press video
journalist - were killed Wednesday when leftover ordnance believed to
have been dropped in an Israeli airstrike blew up in the Gaza Strip.
Simone
Camilli and his Palestinian translator, Ali Shehda Abu Afash, were
covering the aftermath of the war between Israel and Islamic militants
in Gaza when they were killed. The blast occurred as Gaza police
engineers were trying to defuse unexploded ordnance fired by Israel.
Four police engineers also were killed, police said. Three people, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa, were badly injured.
Moussa
told a colleague that they were filming the scene when an initial
explosion went off. He said he was hit by shrapnel and began to run when
there was a second blast, which knocked him out. He woke up in a
hospital and later underwent surgery before he was transferred to a
hospital in Israel for more advanced care.
Police
officials in Gaza said the blast took place at a special site set up in
the northern town of Beit Lahiya where authorities have collected
unexploded ordnance to be defused. The cause of the blast was not
immediately known.
An official said an Israeli
tank shell caused the first explosion, triggering the more powerful
secondary blast that included several bombs, including unexploded
missiles dropped in Israeli airstrikes. The Israeli military carried out
nearly 5,000 airstrikes in a month of fighting.
Hamas
police posted photos of what it said was the site shortly before the
explosion showing a senior bomb disposal expert surveying the area with
piles of unexploded bombs behind him. Even after the blast, the lot,
surrounded by a low wall, was strewn with piles of unexploded shells.
There appeared to be about 10 missiles dropped by Israeli warplanes and
dozens of tank shells.
Iyad al-Bouzm, a
spokesman for Gaza's Interior Ministry, estimated that Israel dropped
about 10,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, including shells fired by
tanks, artillery batteries and gunboats, as well as more powerful
missiles delivered in airstrikes. He said there was no estimate on how
many unexploded shells remained.
Camilli
became the first foreign journalist killed in the Gaza conflict, which
took more than 1,900 Palestinian lives and 67 on the Israeli side.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based
press-freedom advocacy group, four Palestinian journalists or media
workers were previously killed in the fighting.
The
35-year-old Italian national had worked for the AP since 2005, when he
was hired in Rome. He relocated to Jerusalem in 2006, and often covered
assignments in Gaza. He had been based recently in Beirut, returning to
Gaza after the war began last month.
He is survived by a longtime partner and a 3-year-old daughter in Beirut, as well as his parents and two sisters.
Camilli
is the 33rd AP staffer to die in pursuit of the news since AP was
founded in 1846, and the second this year. On April 4, AP photographer
Anja Niedringhaus was killed and veteran AP correspondent Kathy Gannon
was badly wounded by a gunman in Afghanistan.
"Simone
was well known throughout Europe, and especially to our video team in
London, where his death has hit AP deeply," Gary Pruitt, the AP's chief
executive, said in a memo to staffers.
"As all
of you know, this has been a very difficult year for AP," he said. "As
conflict and violence grows around the world, our work becomes more
important but also more dangerous. We take every precaution we can to
protect the brave journalists who staff our front lines. I never cease
to be amazed at their courage."
He said the AP was providing assistance to Camilli's family.
Pope
Francis prayed for Camilli and Abu Afash aboard the papal plane en
route to South Korea after he was informed of their deaths by the Rev.
Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, who noted the tremendous risks
taken by journalists in covering conflict.
Francis, who came to the back of the plane to greet the press, was clearly moved.
"I
have to make a silent prayer for Simone Camilli, one of yours, who
today left us in service. Let us pray in silence," the pontiff said.
Abu
Afash, a 36-year-old Gaza resident, is survived by his wife and two
daughters, ages 7 and 2 1/2. He often worked with the international
media as a translator and news assistant, and worked as a part-time
administrative assistant for Agence France-Presse.
Hundreds
of people attended Abu Afash's funeral in Gaza City. Mourners sobbed
and shrieked in grief, with many people kissing Abu Afash on the
forehead before his body was taken away for burial.
"He
is not a journalist. He's not a terrorist, nor a politician. He's an
innocent man who loves to help everyone," said his wife, Shireen, a
doctor who heads the neonatal unit at the al-Nasr Pediatrics Hospital in
Gaza City and spent much of the war treating the wounded.
"He
was happy to help the foreign journalists in the war. He was not
afraid. He knew that if he died, he will go to heaven," she said. The
couple was to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary in four days.
Camilli
was remembered by colleagues as a consummate storyteller - a passionate
and talented newsman with an eye for detail and the ability to convey
events with powerful video images that touched people around the world.
Camilli
loved reporting from Gaza so much that he recently turned down an
assignment in Iraq to come to the seaside strip, said Najib Jobain, the
AP's chief producer in Gaza.
"He was my
brother. I have known him for almost 10 years. He was so happy to be
with me working in Gaza," Jobain said. "He was asked, `Do you want to go
to Irbil or Gaza?' He said, `I'll go to Gaza.'"
Diaa
Hadid, a longtime colleague, described Camilli as warm and funny. "To
think he is not here is really just too much," she said.
Camilli began his career in Rome while still a university student at the Sapienza University, helping cover Pope John Paul II.
Over
the years, he worked on major stories across Europe and the Middle
East, including the independence of Kosovo, the war in Georgia, the
arrest of Bosnian Serb military leader Radko Mladic, the 2006 war
between Israel and Lebanon, Hamas' takeover of Gaza, the resignation of
Pope Benedict XVI. Most recently, he had covered the rise of the Islamic
State in Iraq and the Syrian refugee crisis.
Chris
Slaney, the former senior producer in Jerusalem, said he brought
Camilli to the region during Israel's war against Hezbollah in 2006, and
"he immersed himself in the Middle East story, which unfortunately is
mostly a story of conflict."
Tomislav Skaro,
the AP's Middle East regional editor for video, said praised Camilli's
"incredible eye for detail" and said he was able to personalize stories
and portray human drama.
"He was incredibly calm, mature beyond his age, gentle and the friend that everybody wants to have," Skaro said.
