Two Arab journalists from Al Jazeera were injured while covering an Israeli attack on a school in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
Wael Dahdouh, Gaza bureau chief for Al Jazeera Arabic, and cameraman Samer Abudaqa were covering an earlier airstrike on the Farhana school in Khan Younis when they were wounded by shrapnel from an Israeli rocket attack on Friday.
Dahdouh was hit by shrapnel on his upper arm and was taken to Nasser Hospital with minor injuries.
Abudaqa suffered shrapnel wounds and remained near the incident site for about two hours as paramedics could not reach the site due to Israeli fire, Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum said.
Witnesses said there was heavy shelling in the area surrounding the school.
The ambulance had to receive prior “approval” from the Israeli forces before it could reach Abudaqa, Abu Azzoum reported from Rafah.
His medical condition is still unclear at this time.
According to Al Jazeera’s Wael Dahdouh, who was also injured in the attack, Abudaqa was “seriously injured”, Abu Azzoum added.
Many Palestinians from the central and northern parts of Gaza have sought shelter in Khan Younis since the war began in October. Many have now been pushed further south, towards the southernmost city of Rafah, after Israel intensified its military operations in Khan Younis.
The attack comes amid violent clashes between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli army in locations across Gaza. Residents reported fighting in Shejaya, Sheikh Radwan, Zeitoun, Tuffah and Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, east of Maghazi in central Gaza and in the center and northern outskirts of Khan Younis, according to the Reuters news service.
At the end of October, Wael Dahdouh lost four of his family members in an Israeli airstrike.
His family had taken refuge in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza when their home was bombed by Israeli forces, killing his wife Um Hamza, his 15-year-old son Mahmoud and his seven-year-old daughter Sham. and his grandson Adam, who died hours later in hospital.
“Despite all the difficulties, despite the death of his family, he recovered within minutes to return to work. And now Wael is the victim,” said Marwan Bishara, senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said it was “shocked” by the attack.
“We condemn the attack and reiterate our demand that the lives of journalists must be protected,” read a message on X.
An IFJ report published last week found that 72 percent of journalists killed in the line of duty this year were killed in the Gaza war.
#Palestine🇵🇸: We are deeply shocked to hear that journalist @WaelDahdouh and cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa were injured while covering an earlier Israeli attack on a school. We condemn the attack and reiterate our demand that the lives of journalists be protected. https://t.co/mjJvgEXJ3z
— IFJ (@IFJGlobal) December 15, 2023
‘A professional, strong team’
The two journalists have been working with Al Jazeera Arabic since before the war.
“[Samer] and Wael are a very professional, strong team on the ground, documenting everything and conveying all the facts and live images of what the Palestinian people have experienced,” said Hani Mahmoud.
“But especially with this war, given the intensity in scale and scope and the sheer amount of destruction, they have been at the forefront of dealing with every little detail that might have been forgotten,” he added.
Jodie Ginsberg, chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Palestinian journalists in Gaza felt abandoned by the international community.
“The role of journalists in such a situation is absolutely essential – especially in Gaza, where we have seen the kind of institutions that traditionally also help with the kind of impact documentation that the UN officials have left behind – so we are really alone left while Gazan journalists were doing this very important documentation work,” she told Al Jazeera.
“The inability of international governments to push for an end to this conflict is increasingly creating a real sense of abandonment among the community and especially among the journalist community in Palestine and the region,” Ginsberg said.
