World Courant
Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abudaqa has been buried in southern Gaza, the place dozens of mourners, together with journalists, paid their respects to the cameraman killed in an Israeli drone strike.
The funeral happened on Saturday within the city of Khan Younis. Abudaqa’s household, mates and colleagues stated a tearful farewell as his physique was lowered into the bottom.
Abudaqa, a cameraman for Al Jazeera Arabic in Gaza, was hit by an Israeli drone strike whereas reporting from Farhana College in Khan Younis. His colleague, Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Arab correspondent, who misplaced his spouse, son, daughter and grandson in an earlier Israeli bombing, was injured.
Journalists in Gaza are carrying a “human and noble message” to the world amid the continued warfare and can proceed to work regardless of Israeli assaults, Dahdouh stated in his eulogy.
“We’ll proceed to meet our obligation with professionalism and transparency,” he stated, as mourners round him wept.
On Friday, Dahdouh was struck by shrapnel on his higher arm and managed to stroll alone to Nasser Hospital, the place he was handled for minor accidents. He stated the community’s crew accompanied civil protection rescuers on a mission to evacuate a household after their home was bombed.
“We captured the devastating destruction and reached locations that no digital camera lens had reached because the Israeli floor operation started,” Dahdouh stated from his hospital mattress.
Because the Al Jazeera journalists returned on foot as a result of the areas had been inaccessible by automobile, Dahdouh stated “one thing huge” occurred that knocked him to the bottom.
After the explosion, Dahdouh stated he pressed on his wounds and walked out of the realm to get assist, however by the point he reached an ambulance, medics stated they may not return to the scene of the assault as a result of it was too harmful.
Subsequent efforts to coordinate protected passage and ship rescuers to Abudaqa had been delayed, Dahdouh stated, including that an ambulance attempting to achieve the cameraman got here underneath fireplace.
“We acquired into the ambulance and I requested them to return to the place I used to be as a result of Samer was nonetheless there and he was screaming and calling for assist,” Dahdouh stated earlier than listening to information of Abudaqa’s killing.
“He was injured within the decrease a part of his physique, however the paramedics instructed me that we’ve to depart instantly and that they may ship one other ambulance so that we’ll not all be focused.”
(Al Jazeera)
On Friday, the Al Jazeera Media Community condemned the assault and provided condolences to Abudaqa’s household in Gaza and Belgium.
It stated in a press release that it “holds Israel accountable for the systematic focusing on and killing of Al Jazeera journalists and their households.”
“In as we speak’s bombing of Khan Younis, Israeli drones fired missiles at a college the place civilians had been taking refuge, inflicting indiscriminate casualties,” the community stated.
“After Samer’s harm, he was left to bleed to loss of life for greater than 5 hours whereas Israeli forces prevented ambulances and rescuers from reaching him, depriving him of much-needed emergency remedy,” the assertion stated.
‘Nothing to guard journalists’
The 2 journalists had been working with Al Jazeera Arabic earlier than the warfare.
“(Samer) and Wael are a really skilled, robust staff on the bottom, documenting all the pieces and conveying all of the details and dwell photos of what the Palestinian individuals skilled,” stated Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud.
“However particularly with this warfare, given the depth in scale and scope and the sheer quantity of destruction, they’ve been on the forefront of coping with each little element which may have been forgotten,” he added.
Mahmoud stated on Saturday that “there may be nothing to guard journalists in the complete Gaza Strip,” with an growing variety of journalists being focused immediately or via their households “simply to inflict a lot ache on them that it deters them from persevering with.”
“It is a heinous crime – a direct assault,” stated Ibrahim Qanan, a reporter for the pan-Arab community al-Ghad. “The primary rocket hit Samer and he tried to crawl 200 meters, however the Israeli fighter planes hit him once more and immediately, so he turned a martyr and his physique was lower into items.
“It is a crime, day and night time, in opposition to journalists and in opposition to the media who work to reveal the crimes of the Israeli occupation within the Gaza Strip.”
Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Ramallah within the occupied West Financial institution, stated he and a few of his colleagues verify their telephones within the morning after waking as much as see if all their colleagues on the bottom are nonetheless alive.
“That is actually the message I took away from all our colleagues in Gaza: they get up each morning with the willpower to proceed reporting,” he stated. “I am actually in awe of it.”
Al Jazeera journalists had been focused
Abudaqa and Dahdouh will not be the primary Al Jazeera journalists to have been attacked whereas reporting a narrative.
The primary was Palestinian journalist Tarek Ayoub, who died in 2003 because of accidents sustained in a US bombing of the Al Jazeera constructing in Baghdad throughout the Iraq warfare.
Different Al Jazeera journalists have additionally been killed in Libya, Syria and Yemen. The community has erected a monument at its headquarters in Doha: a metal tree sculpture with leaves bearing the names of the reporters.
“You possibly can’t keep away from the bullets, you’ll be able to’t keep away from the bombs,” Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud famous.
“However some issues should be documented. The story of Gaza and its individuals have to be instructed to the world, and that’s most likely the best motivation for the journalist neighborhood in Gaza, regardless of the rapid risk to their lives.”
Abudaqa joined Al Jazeera in June 2004 and labored as a cameraman and editor.
The journalist, born in 1978, was the daddy of three boys and a lady. He was a resident of the city of Abasan al-Kabira close to Khan Younis.
Abudaqa is the thirteenth Al Jazeera journalist to be killed within the line of obligation because the community’s launch in 1996.
Requires accountability
On Friday, White Home nationwide safety spokesman John Kirby expressed Washington’s “deepest sympathies and condolences” for Abudaqa’s killing, as worldwide requires accountability for Israel’s killing of journalists since October 7 develop .
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian consultant to the United Nations, stated “sufficient is sufficient” after Abudaqa’s killing.
The Committee to Defend Journalists (CPJ) stated it was “deeply saddened” and known as for an unbiased investigation into the assault.
The press freedom group careworn that the battle in Gaza is the deadliest for journalists on report.
“We’re outraged by the excessive worth, I might say the intense worth, that Palestinian journalists are paying,” CPJ’s Carlos Martinez de la Serna instructed Al Jazeera, including that there was a “clear prevailing sense of impunity.”
“We’d like worldwide, unbiased investigations to evaluate all these killings and people accountable have to be held accountable,” de la Serna stated. “It’s important to do not forget that underneath worldwide humanitarian regulation, journalists are civilians, and the obligation of all events concerned within the warfare is to guard them, and what we’re seeing is journalists being killed.”
The Worldwide Federation of Journalists (IFJ) stated in a message on X that it was “shocked” by the assault.
An IFJ report printed final week discovered that 72 p.c of journalists killed within the line of obligation this yr had been killed within the Gaza warfare.
“We condemn the assault and reiterate our demand that the lives of journalists have to be protected,” the group added.
Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abudaqa buried in southern Gaza | Israeli-Palestinian Battle Information
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