Israeli troops had mistakenly shot dead three Gaza hostages while an Al Jazeera cameraman bled to death after he and a colleague were badly wounded in a drone strike in the Palestinian territory.

The Israeli military said Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer El-Talalqa were shot during operations in a neighborhood of Gaza City.

The trio were among those kidnapped during raids into Israel by Hamas terrorists on 7 October, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw an estimated 240 hostages taken, according to Israeli authorities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the death of the three hostages as an "unbearable tragedy."

As news of the incident spread, hundreds of people gathered at Israel's ministry of defense in the city of Tel Aviv in protest.

The demonstrators waved Israeli flags and brandished placards with the faces of some of the 129 people still held in Gaza.

In Tel Aviv, relatives of hostages called on the government to reach an accord to allow more people to be freed.

"I am dying of fear," Merav Svirsky, sister of Hamas-held hostage Itay Svirsky, said. "We demand a deal now."

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa and Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh were wounded in a school in Khan Yunis, where they were hit by "shrapnel from an Israeli missile attack."

"Following Samer's injury, he was left to bleed to death for over 5 hours, as Israeli forces prevented ambulances and rescue workers from reaching him, denying the much-needed emergency treatment," it said.

Al-Dahdouh was wounded in the arm and transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, according to an Agence France-Presse journalist.

In a news update, Al Jazeera said Al-Dahdouh was able to leave the area of the strike to look for help, "but by the time he reached an ambulance, medics said they could not return to the site of the attack because it was too dangerous."

Israeli forces prevented ambulances and rescue workers from reaching him.

Al Jazeera managing editor Mohamed Moawad paid tribute to Abu Daqqa on X, saying: "His unwavering commitment to truth and storytelling has left an indelible mark on our team.

"Samer, whose lens captured the raw and unfiltered reality of life in Gaza, was not just a skilled professional but a compassionate soul who understood the power of visual storytelling.

"In the pursuit of truth, our cameraman faced immense risks to bring viewers a deeper understanding of the human experience in Gaza," Moawad said.

Al Jazeera said it held "Israel accountable for systematically targeting and killing Al Jazeera journalists and their families."

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

More than 60 journalists and media staff have died since the Israel-Hamas war began, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Further south in Rafah near the Egyptian border, crowds of Palestinians used flashlights to search the rubble of buildings for survivors following Israeli strikes.

Under pressure to do more to spare civilians, Israel approved a "temporary measure" allowing aid to be delivered directly to Gaza through its Kerem Shalom border crossing, the prime minister's office said.

Israel had faced weeks of pressure from aid agencies and Western allies to reopen Kerem Shalom as Egypt's Rafah crossing struggled to cope with the scale of need inside Gaza, where 1.9 million of the 2.4 million population have been displaced, according to United Nations figures.

A World Health Organization representative said the announcement was "very good news."

Aid distribution had largely stopped in most of Gaza, except on a limited basis in the Rafah area, according to the United Nations.                                  

WITH AFP