An Al Jazeera cameraman was killed and the community’s Arabic-language Gaza Strip bureau chief was wounded on Friday throughout an assault in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera said, the newest in an extended string of journalist casualties within the warfare.
The cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, and Wael al-Dahdouh, the bureau chief, have been protecting the aftermath of airstrikes at a U.N. school-turned-shelter in Khan Younis when each have been wounded, the community mentioned. Mr. al-Dahdouh advised Al Jazeera that he was in a position to stroll out of the realm and search assist, however Mr. Abu Daqqa died from his accidents, the community mentioned.
In October, Mr. al-Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and infant grandson were killed on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the place they’d been sheltering.
Mohamed Moawad, Al Jazeera’s managing editor, described Mr. Abu Daqqa as “a compassionate soul” whose images “captured the raw and unfiltered reality and life in Gaza.”
“In the pursuit of truth, our cameraman faced immense risks to bring viewers a deeper understanding of the human experience in Gaza,” he mentioned in a publish on social media. “His lens became a window into the lives of those affected by conflict, shedding light on stories that needed to be told.”
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit group based mostly in New York that defends the rights of journalists around the globe, 64 journalists and media employees have been killed in Gaza because the warfare between Israel and Hamas started on Oct. 7, greater than in some other comparable time period because the group began gathering information in 1992.
The C.P.J. defines journalists as “people who cover news or comment on public affairs through print, digital, broadcast media and other means,” and media employees as important help workers, together with translators, drivers and fixers. The group has mentioned it doesn’t embrace individuals in its tallies if there may be proof of their “acting on behalf of militant groups or serving in a military capacity at the time of their deaths.”
In line with the C.P.J.’s information, among the 64 killed in Gaza have been freelancers and didn’t work for conventional information retailers, and its web site famous that it was unclear whether or not all of them have been protecting the battle on the time of their deaths. Israel and Egypt have largely prevented worldwide journalists from getting into the enclave because the battle started; Hamas, which controls Gaza, has lengthy restricted what the information media there can cowl.
Carlos Martínez de la Serna, C.P.J.’s program director, said the organization was concerned about “the pattern of attacks on Al Jazeera journalists and their families.”
In a statement, Al Jazeera blamed Israel for Friday’s assault in Khan Younis and for “systematically targeting and killing Al Jazeera journalists and their families.” It urged “the international community, media freedom organizations, and the International Criminal Court to take immediate action to hold the Israeli government and military accountable.”
The Israeli army didn’t instantly reply to the accusations. Khan Younis is considered one of three areas that Israel has mentioned it’s concentrating on in its battle to eradicate Hamas from Gaza.
John Kirby, a White Home spokesman, mentioned he was not conscious of any proof that Israel was deliberately concentrating on journalists, who he mentioned should be protected.
“It’s never acceptable to deliberately target them, as they do such vital, dangerous, dangerous work,” he mentioned, including, “That’s a principle that we’re going to continue to abide by.”
Worldwide watchdogs have said that an Israeli strike on Oct. 13 that killed a videographer for the Reuters information company and injured six different journalists was a focused assault carried out by the Israeli army. Earlier this 12 months, a C.P.J. report discovered that nobody had been held accountable for almost 20 journalists killed by the Israeli army since 2001.
Katie Rogers contributed reporting.
