Samer Abudaqa, a Palestinian cameraman for Al Jazeera, was killed in an Israeli strike, while the TV network’s chief Gaza correspondent Wael Dahdouh was wounded on Friday as they reported at a school in the south of the besieged territory, the network said.
Abudaqa and Dahdouh had gone to Farhana school in Khan Younis in Gaza after it was hit by a strike earlier in the day. While they were reporting from the spot, an Israeli drone hit the school with a second strike, the network said. Follow Live Updates on Israel-Hamas war
Heavily wounded in his arm and shoulder, Dahdouh, while speaking from a hospital bed, told Al Jazeera he was able to escape, bleeding, from the school and found several ambulance workers. He asked them to look for Abudaqa, but they said it was too risky and promised another ambulance would come for him, Dahdouh said.
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Abudaqa fell bleeding to the ground the last time Dahdouh saw. “He was screaming, he was calling for help,” said Dahdouh.
Al Jazeera later reported that an ambulance tried to reach the school to evacuate its cameraman, but it had to turn back because roads were blocked by the rubble of destroyed houses. Abudaqa continued to bleed for several more hours, until a civil defence crew found him dead, Al Jazeera said in a statement.
Dahdouh said the network’s crew was accompanying civil defence rescuers on a mission to evacuate a family after its home was bombed.
“We captured the devastating destruction and reached places that had not been reached by any camera lens since the Israeli ground operation started,” Al Jazeera quoted Dahdouh as saying.
As the Al Jazeera journalists were heading back on foot because the areas were not accessible by car, Dahdouh said “something big” happened that knocked him to the ground, the network reported.
Al Jazeera condemns the attack
The Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the attack and extended its condolences to Abudaqa’s family in Gaza and Belgium.
“The Network holds Israel accountable for systematically targeting and killing Al Jazeera journalists and their families,” the statement read.
“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,” the statement added.
In late October, Wael Dahdouh lost four of his family members in an Israeli air raid.
Palestinian UN ambassador Riyad Mansour reacts
Meanwhile, Palestinian UN ambassador Riyad Mansour told a General Assembly meeting on the war that Israel “targets those who could document (their) crimes and inform the world, the journalists”.
“We mourn one of those journalists, Samer Abu Daqqa, wounded in an Israeli drone strike and left to bleed to death for 6 hours while ambulances were prevented from reaching him,” Mansour said.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Abu Daqqa is the 64th journalist to be killed since the conflict erupted between Hamas and Israel: 57 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese journalists.
The Abudaqa, 45, a Khan Younis native, joined Al Jazeera in June 2004, working as a cameraman as well as an editor. He leaves behind three sons and a daughter.
(With inputs from agencies)
