Al Jazeera television said today that two of its Palestinian journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on their car in the Gaza Strip, accusing the Israeli army of “targeting” Palestinian journalists.

Hamza Wael Dahdu, a journalist for the Al Jazeera network, and his colleague Mustafa Thuraya, a freelance cameraman working with the Qatar network and with AFP and other international media, were killed while in their car heading to the southern tip of Palestinian territory, to “do their job,” Al Jazeera said. A third journalist traveling with them, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken from Doha, where he is on a visit, called the death in Gaza this morning of the two Palestinian journalists “an unimaginable tragedy”.

With these new deaths today, at least 79 journalists and media professionals have been killed since the war began, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Among them, 72 were Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese.

The Hamas health ministry in Gaza had earlier announced their deaths, attributing them to an Israeli strike.

Witnesses told AFP that two rockets were fired at the car: one hit the front of the vehicle and the other hit Hamza, who was sitting next to the driver.

“Then we found the body parts (of those in the car). The ambulance arrived and transported those inside the car,” an eyewitness, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told AFP.

AFP video footage showed a crowd looking at the wrecked car as pools of blood lined the road.

No other damage was visible in the area.

AFP sought a statement from the Israeli military. Hours after the incident, the army has not responded to this request.

“Al Jazeera condemns in the strongest terms the targeting by Israeli occupation forces of the Palestinian journalists’ car,” the Qatari network said in a statement, accusing Israel of “violating the principles of press freedom.”

Phil Chetweed, AFP’s director of global news, said the agency was “shocked” by Mustafa’s death.

“We strongly condemn all attacks against journalists doing their jobs and it is important to have a clear explanation of what happened,” he added.

Wael al-Dahdu, father of Hamza al-Dahdu, is Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief. He had recently been wounded in an Israeli strike and lost his wife and two children in another Israeli strike in the first weeks of the war.

“Hamza was everything to me… While we are full of humanity, they (Israel) are full of murderous hatred,” Dahdu told Al Jazeera. Pictures show him crying in a hospital, hugging his son’s body, surrounded by relatives and journalists.