Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa was one of dozens of reporters killed by apartheid Israel.
There is growing concern that the terrorist regime in apartheid Israel is targeting journalists covering its assault on Gaza. Nearly 70 journalists were murdered since 7 October, the latest being the tragic death of Samer Abudaqa.
The Al Jazeera cameraman was reporting at the Farhana School in the city of Khan Younis when an Israeli strike hit him and colleague Wael Dahdouh on Friday. Abudaqa later succumbed to his wounds as paramedics were unable to reach him due to military activity in the vicinity.
Tamer Al Misshalm, a Palestinian journalist and reporter at Al Jazeera, said Abudaqa was an example of the kind of journalist “who was determined to go on working despite all these difficulties”.
“What happened to him was part of a crime and what we believe [is] a genocide targeting Palestinian civilians, including journalists,” he said. “It was an assassination operation.”
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War on journalists
Israel carpet bombed the Gaza Strip since 7 October, when the Hamas resistance group launched an operation against the occupying state. In the two months since, at least 18 787 Gazans have been murdered, including reporters.
In an interview on Al Jazeera, Jim Boumelha, an activist affiliated with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), said: “The situation in the West Bank and in Gaza has been producing journalists being murdered for the last 40 years … The difference with what’s been happening now is that it’s not during decades; it’s happened in around 70 days”.
He was convinced the apartheid state was at war with the journalists who worked tirelessly to convey the extent of suffering in Palestine to the world. “As we have said all along, the Israelis have been targeting journalists,” he said.
“It happened 30 years ago, but it’s happening right now. One of the immediate explanations is that they are targeting journalists as an attempt to try to cower them from doing the job that they’re doing everyday.”
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 7 October was the “deadliest day of the war for journalist deaths”, with six killed, while “the second-deadliest day occurred on November 18, with five killed”.
“Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages and extensive power outages,” said the group, in an alert listing the murdered reporters.
