Israelis and Palestinians protest for peace as journalist Mariam Dagga's family mourns her death

NAZARETH, Israel (AP) — In the streets of Nazareth, Israeli and Palestinian activists wore stickers replicating the ‘Press’ insignia emblazoned on flak jackets and other clothing worn by journalists as they rallied for peace in Gaza. Their message: Journalism is not a crime.

A throng of people wearing blue-and-white ‘Press’ stickers — used to identify journalists in dangerous areas — gathered in the Israeli town on Friday to call for an end to the war in Gaza, which has killed nearly 200 journalists among tens of thousands of others. Some held photos of Palestinian journalists killed.

’’Don’t assassinate the truth," read a banner the protesters held. Some banged on empty pots to symbolize hunger in the Gaza Strip and protest the killing of journalists.

Mariam Dagga, a 33-year-old who freelanced for The Associated Press, was among the war's victims. She and four other reporters were killed earlier this week when Israeli forces struck Nasser Hospital in the Gaza town of Khan Younis, along with 17 other people.

Dagga was among a group of journalists who regularly based themselves at the hospital during the war, which began on Oct. 7, 2023, when an attack by Hamas militants inside Israel claimed the lives of 1,200 people and resulted in 251 people being held hostage. Israel's retaliatory military operation in Gaza has so far killed more than 63,000 people, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Mariam sought to bring to the world the travails of ordinary Palestinians displaced by the war, as well as the work of doctors and nurses treating the wounded or caring for malnourished children.

The Israeli military said it targeted what it believed was a Hamas surveillance camera in the hospital attack, without providing evidence, and that the journalists weren't the targets. The prime minister called the attack a ‘’mishap.''

All that doesn’t mean much for Mariam’s father, Riyad, sitting in his tent in Khan Younis, nearly 180kilometers (111 miles) away from Nazareth. Poring over the last photos taken by his daughter, he recalled the utter shock he felt when he heard what happened.

“I couldn’t walk. And I didn’t know what was around me when I heard the news,” he told the AP. “The person who told me the news said that Mariam was martyred, and I collapsed,” he said, his eyes welling with tears as he watched a video of his daughter and him.

Mariam’s sister, Nada, was with her at the hospital when she was killed. Nada recalled vividly the last look the two sisters exchanged when the second of two rounds of strikes hit the hospital’s stairwell, where Mariam was killed.

“Mariam, my sister, was on the stairs filming. I watched her and looked at her,” Nada said. “The last look between me and her. She looked at me and smiled.”

It was Mariam’s brother, Mohamed, who rushed into the stairwell in search of his sister, finding her among the bodies of her colleagues.

“I pulled her out and took her from the fourth floor to the operations (room),” Mohamed said. “They told me to go downstairs at the reception until you receive (the body).”

Mariam’s last photos showed the damaged stairwell outside Nasser Hospital, where she would be killed moments later. The photos show people walking up the staircase after it was damaged in the first strike, while others look out the hospital’s windows.

Palestinian and Israeli activists and journalists take part in a protest against the killing of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip, as they gather in Nazareth, Israel, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian and Israeli activists and journalists take part in a protest against the killing of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip, as they gather in Nazareth, Israel, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Freelance journalist Mariam Dagga, 33, who had been working with The Associated Press and other outlets during the Gaza war, takes a selfie surrounded by children at a school used to shelter displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 31, 2023. Dagga was one of several journalists killed, along with other people, in Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinian and Israeli activists and journalists take part in a protest against the killing of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip, as they gather in Nazareth, Israel, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

MONACO (AP) — Monaco ’s chief prosecutor said Tuesday that the suspect who placed an explosive device that injured three people, including a reported Ukrainian tycoon, acted alone and remains at large.

Police in the principality have opened an attempted murder investigation into Monday's incident but aren’t qualifying it as a terrorism investigation, Prosecutor Stephane Thibault told reporters. The motive remains unclear.

One of the three injured is a woman in life-threatening condition, he said. The other is a man who is no longer in life-threatening condition and a child whose life isn’t in danger, he said. He didn’t provide their identities.

The suspected attacker fled into neighboring France, authorities have said.

Media reports identified Ukrainian construction tycoon Vadym Yermolaiev as being among the injured. Ukrainian news site Ukrainska Pravda said he was targeted by Ukrainian sanctions in 2023 for ties to Russia.

The injured woman is being treated at a hospital in Nice, Christophe Mirmand, the minister of state for Monaco, told French news broadcaster LCI on Tuesday. Her partner and a 13-year-old child suffered less severe injuries but remain at hospital, he added.

The explosion occurred around 9 p.m. on Monday at the entrance of a residence near the French border.

Law enforcement officers were deployed Tuesday morning in Monaco and the surrounding area. French and Monaco authorities are searching for an unidentified suspect, whose motive is under investigation, authorities said.

The three victims were “apparently returning home peacefully” in the early evening, according to surveillance footage, Mirmand said. “They were caught in the explosion as they crossed the threshold of their apartment building,” he said.

The victims are “regular” residents of Monaco, but authorities do not yet know whether the family had been threatened in the past, Mirmand said.

“It appears that the family was specifically targeted,” he emphasized, noting that the alleged perpetrator “had walked around the area several times while waiting for the victims,” according to surveillance footage. “In the minutes before the explosion, he was apparently waiting for the victims.”

The attack has shocked the elite principality on the Mediterranean Coast. Monaco’s Prince Albert II described it as “an odious act” and said all the country's services were mobilized to ensure security.

A French national police official said a search is underway for the suspect.

Yermolaiev, a Ukrainian-born businessman originally from the city of Dnipro, built his fortune through the Alef Group, a diversified holding with interests including commercial real estate, manufacturing and agriculture. He became one of the country’s best-known property developers, leading projects that reshaped parts of Dnipro’s city center, and has regularly appeared in rankings of Ukraine’s wealthiest businesspeople.

In an interview with Forbes Ukraine, Yermolaiev said he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship and became a Cypriot citizen in 2017.

In December 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on Yermolaiev as part of a broader package targeting individuals and companies Kyiv said had business links to Russia or Russian-occupied territories.

A coastal playground for the rich and famous, Monaco is renowned as much for its tax-friendly incentives and Formula 1 Grand Prix as its glamorous royal family. The small principality is widely regarded as one of the safest places in the world, including through its extensive surveillance network composed of thousands of CCTV cameras covering most public spaces.

Monaco’s population of 38,000 is multinational, with only a fifth of the population actually citizens of the principality.

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AP journalist Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed to the story.

Investigators examine the scene at the residential building where an explosive device seriously injured three people a day earlier in Monaco, Tuesday, June 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Philippe Magoni)

A police officer guards in a street in Monaco, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, a day after an explosive device seriously injured three people at a residential building in Monaco. (AP Photo/Philippe Magoni)

FILE - A luxury car drives along Monaco Harbor, Nov. 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)