Al Jazeera Journalist Sameer Abu Daqa Killed In Israeli Attacks, Succumbed To Injuries As Israeli Forces Did Not Allow Safe Passage Of Medics

Gaza: Al Jazeera cameraman Sameer Abu Daqa was killed after hit by an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis as he was reporting for the Qatar-based newscaster along with senior journalist Wael Dahdouh. Eyewitness accounts said Dahdouh was able to reach a hospital, but Abudaqa was “unable to be transferred due to widespread destruction in southern Gaza”.

According to Al Jazeera, emergency medical teams were prevented by the Israeli forces from immediately reaching him. Another journalist said Abu Daqa was left for bleeding for almost five hours as his colleagues were trying their best to find a safe passage to move him to hospital. But, eventually when the medical services reached him, the cameraman had succumbed to his injuries.

Abudaqa was the father of three boys and a girl. He was a resident of the town of Abasan al-Kabira near Khan Younis, and when the Israeli attack happened he was on duty reporting from Farhana School in the centre of the city of Khan Younis.

Both the journalists from Al Jazeera, that has been engaged in intensive coverage of the ongoing bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli occupation forces, were wounded on Friday by an Israeli missile fired from a drone in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, their colleagues said.

Among the two journalists, Wael Dahdouh, the Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera, has been considered as the face of Al-Jazeera Arabic’ Gaza coverage and he was in news when an airstrike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in October last week killed several families including the family of Wael Dahdouh. It was reported that he lost his wife, son and grandson in the Israel air raid.