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AP Journalist and Translator Among Five Killed in Gaza Explosion

Were accompanying engineers as they neutralized ordnance from the conflict

by
Stephanie Butnick
August 13, 2014
A Palestinian man mourns the death of his relative outside the morgue in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza strip on August 13, 2014.(ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)
A Palestinian man mourns the death of his relative outside the morgue in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza strip on August 13, 2014.(ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

An Associated Press video journalist and his Palestinian translator were killed in Gaza Wednesday, along with three police engineers, in an ordnance explosion in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. The AP reports that Simone Camilli, 35, and translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash, 36, were working on a story about the aftermath of the fighting in Gaza, and were accompanying the engineers as they neutralized explosives and munitions debris remaining from the month-long conflict.

Camilli is the first foreign journalist killed during the Gaza operation.

Police said three police engineers were also killed, while four people, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa, were badly injured.



Camilli, an Italian national, had worked for The Associated Press since being hired as a freelancer in Rome in 2005. He relocated to Jerusalem in 2006, and often covered assignments in Gaza.

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.