Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abudaqa laid to rest in southern Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News – Canada Boosts

Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abudaqa has been laid to relaxation in southern Gaza, with dozens of mourners, together with journalists, paying their respects to the cameraman killed in an Israeli drone assault.

The funeral was held on Saturday within the metropolis of Khan Younis. Abudaqa’s household, pals and colleagues bid a tearful farewell as his physique was lowered into the bottom.

Abudaqa, a cameraman for Al Jazeera Arabic in Gaza, was hit in an Israeli drone assault whereas reporting at Farhana faculty in Khan Younis. His colleague, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Wael Dahdouh, who misplaced his spouse, son, daughter and grandson in a previous Israeli bombing, was wounded.

Journalists in Gaza are carrying a “human and noble message” for the world amid the continued conflict and can proceed to work regardless of Israeli assaults, Dahdouh stated in his eulogy.

“We will continue to do our duty with professionalism and transparency,” he stated, as mourners round him wept.

On Friday, Dahdouh was hit by shrapnel on his higher arm, and managed to stroll to Nasser hospital alone, the place he was handled for minor accidents. He stated the community’s crew was accompanying civil defence rescuers on a mission to evacuate a household after its residence 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,” Dahdouh stated from his hospital mattress.

Because the Al Jazeera journalists had been heading again on foot as a result of the areas weren’t accessible by automotive, Dahdouh stated “something big” 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 might not return to the location of the assault as a result of it was too harmful.

Subsequent efforts to coordinate a secure passage to ship rescuers for Abudaqa had been delayed, Dahdouh stated, including that one ambulance that attempted to achieve the cameraman got here below fireplace.

“We got in the ambulance, I asked them to go back to where I was because Samer was still there and he was screaming and he was calling for help,” Dahdouh stated earlier than listening to information of Abudaqa’s killing.

“He got injured in the lower part of his body but the paramedics told me that we need to leave immediately and that they will send another ambulance so that we won’t be all targeted.”

On Friday, the Al Jazeera Media Community condemned the assault and prolonged its condolences to Abudaqa’s household in Gaza and Belgium.

It stated in a press release that it “holds Israel accountable for systematically targeting and killing Al Jazeera journalists and their families”.

“In today’s bombing in Khan Younis, Israeli drones fired missiles at a school where civilians sought refuge, resulting in indiscriminate casualties,” the community stated.

“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 assertion added.

‘Nothing to protect journalists’

The 2 journalists labored along with Al Jazeera Arabic since earlier than the conflict.

“[Samer] and Wael make up a very professional, strong team on the ground, documenting everything and bringing all the facts and live pictures of what the Palestinian people have been going through,” Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud stated.

“But particularly with this war, given its intensity in scale and magnitude and the sheer amount of destruction, they have been at the forefront of covering every little detail that one might have forgotten about,” he added.

Mahmoud stated on Saturday that “there’s nothing to protect journalists across the Gaza Strip”, with an rising quantity focused straight or by way of their households “just to inflict so much pain on them that it prevents them from continuing”.

“This is a horrific crime – a direct targeting,” stated Ibrahim Qanan, a reporter for the pan-Arab community al-Ghad. “The primary missile hit Samer and he tried to crawl for 200 metres, however the Israeli warplanes hit him once more and straight, so he turned a martyr and his physique was lower into items.

“This is a crime, day and night, against journalists and against the media outlets who are working to reveal the Israeli occupation’s crimes in the Gaza Strip.”

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, who’s reporting from Ramallah within the occupied West Financial institution, stated he and quite a lot of his colleagues verify their telephones within the morning very first thing after waking as much as see if all their colleagues on the bottom are nonetheless alive.

“This is really the message I have taken away from all of our colleagues in Gaza: They wake up every morning with a determination to continue reporting,” he stated. “I am actually in awe of it.”

Al Jazeera journalists focused

Abudaqa and Dahdouh will not be the primary Al Jazeera journalists who’ve been attacked whereas masking a narrative.

The primary was Palestinian journalist Tarek Ayoub, who was killed in 2003 because of accidents he suffered in a US bombing of Al Jazeera’s constructing in Baghdad, in the course of the Iraq conflict.

Different Al Jazeera journalists have additionally been killed in Libya, Syria and Yemen. The community has established a monument at its headquarters in Doha: a metal tree sculpture with leaves carrying the names of the reporters.

“There’s no way around bullets, there’s no way around the bombs,” Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud famous.

“But some things need to be documented. The story of Gaza and its people needs to be told to the world, and that’s probably the biggest motivator for the journalist community in Gaza, despite the imminent threat to their lives.”

Abudaqa joined Al Jazeera in June 2004, working 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 killed on responsibility because the launch of the community in 1996.

Requires accountability

On Friday, White Home nationwide safety spokesperson John Kirby expressed Washington’s “deepest sympathies and condolences” for the killing of Abudaqa, as worldwide requires accountability, for Israel’s killing of  journalists since October 7, develop.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian consultant to the United Nations, stated “enough is enough” after Abudaqa’s killing.

The Committee to Shield Journalists (CPJ) stated it was “deeply saddened” and referred to as for an unbiased investigation into the assault.

The press freedom group highlighted that the battle in Gaza is the deadliest for journalists it has ever recorded.

“We’re outraged by the high price, I would say the extreme price, that Palestinian journalists are paying,” the CPJ’s Carlos Martinez de la Serna advised Al Jazeera, including that there was a “clear prevailing sense of impunity.”

“We need international, independent investigations to assess all these killings and those responsible need to be accountable,” stated de la Serna. “It’s essential to remember that journalists under international humanitarian law are civilians, and the obligation on all parties involved in the war is to protect them, and what we’re seeing, is that journalists are being killed.”

The Worldwide Federation of Journalists (IFJ) stated it was “shocked” by the assault, in a publish on X.

An IFJ report printed final week discovered that 72 p.c of journalists who died on the job this 12 months had been killed within the Gaza conflict.

“We condemn the attack and reiterate our demand that journalists’ lives must be safeguarded,” the group added.