The head of the Gaza Strip Press Promotion Organization and two other journalists were killed over the weekend in Israeli army operations in the Palestinian enclave, relatives of the victims said, as the number of media workers lost in six weeks of war neared fifty.

The New York-based non-governmental organization Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the new deaths brought the number of media workers killed since October 7 to 48.

According to CPJ, 43 Palestinians, 4 Israelis and one Lebanese have been killed so far.

“Journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this shocking conflict. Those in Gaza in particular have paid, and continue to pay, an unprecedented price and face exponential threats,” Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, told Reuters news agency by email.

Bilal Jadala, a journalist and chairman of the board of Press House-Palestine, was killed yesterday Sunday, while his brother-in-law, a pharmacist, was seriously injured, his sister and other relatives said.

Bilal Jadala told his sister earlier yesterday that he was leaving Gaza City, heading south. He was killed in Zaitoun area.

People who found him took him to a medical center, where he was pronounced dead, according to his sister. It is believed to have been hit by an Israeli tank shell.

Four of Bilal Jadala’s relatives work for Reuters in the Gaza Strip or abroad.

Another journalist named on CPJ’s list is Issam Abdullah, a Reuters cameraman who was killed in Lebanon, near the border with Israel, on October 13.

In addition to Bilal Jadala, two freelance reporters, Hassuna Slim and Shari Mansour, were killed Saturday in an Israeli raid on the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, their relatives and health workers in the Palestinian enclave said. According to the latter, a total of 17 people were killed in the raid on the refugee camp.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond when asked by Reuters to comment on the news of the journalists’ deaths.