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As Wael al-Dahdouh, head of Al Jazeera's Gaza office, was treated for shrapnel injuries after being injured in an Israeli drone strike on Friday, he urged doctors to get to his captured colleague.
“Samer was at my location,” he said, wincing in pain as doctors at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis examined him. His right arm was bandaged and his left hand was covered in blood. “Samer screamed, Samer screamed,” he said. “Coordinate with the Red Cross and have someone bring him!”
Cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa had been with Dahdouh on Friday as the pair traveled to cover the Israeli bombing of the Farhana School in Khan Younis, which housed displaced Palestinians.
But after they arrived, they were hit by a drone strike, according to Al Jazeera. Dahdouh managed to leave the area as the bombardment continued, but Abu Daqqa failed to make it and desperately tried to get to safety.
Ambulances attempted to reach the area, but the path was blocked by debris and medics could not get there due to the bombardment. The network reported that three civil defense workers died trying to reach him for five hours.
“Samer continued to bleed for several hours until the civil defense team found him dead,” Al Jazeera English said in an internal statement on Friday. Abu Daqqa, 45, was a father of four and lived in Khan Younis, the city where he died.
According to Reporters Without Borders, the war has taken a crushing toll on journalists in the Gaza Strip. Fifty-six people have been killed since Israel's attack on Hamas began in October. About 13 of them were killed at work, while the others were killed in their homes or while going about their daily lives.
Al Jazeera said it “holds Israel responsible for systematically targeting and killing Al Jazeera journalists and their families” and called on the international community to hold Israel accountable.
Abu Daqqa is the first Al Jazeera journalist to die in the war. In October, Dahdouh lost 14 other family members, including his wife Amna, 15-year-old son Mahmoud and 7-year-old daughter Sham, during an Israeli attack on the home where they were taking refuge. His 1½-year-old grandson was also killed. He found out about the bombing while he was live on the air.
“This is a massacre for journalism and journalists on the ground,” said Suruq As'ad, a spokeswoman for the West Bank-based Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. “They are all locals. They are targeted, and those around them are targeted: their loved ones, their neighborhoods, their cities, their friends, their offices, and they continue to do their jobs as reporters, as cameramen, as correspondents.”
She said the Al Jazeera team was clearly marked as press when they traveled to cover the school bombing, with markings on their car and security equipment, and accused Israel of war crimes. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment.
The Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem said Abu Daqqa was its first member killed during the war, describing him as an “experienced cameraman.”
“We consider this a serious blow to the already limited press freedom in Gaza and call on the army to immediately investigate and explain,” it said. “The FPA repeatedly appealed to the Israeli military, which said it had authorized a bulldozer to clear the road for an ambulance to Samer, but it appears it took hours for first responders to gain access.”
Loay Ayyoub, a photographer who works for The Washington Post, said he became close to Abu Daqqa during the war when they spent time together at Nasser Hospital, where the injured and dead are endlessly admitted.
Still, Abu Daqqa always managed to smile, he said. “Everyone loved him. At the end of each workday we sat and talked until the wee hours of the morning.”
Ayyoub said he managed to get his family out of Gaza. “He always told me, 'There is a safer place outside of Gaza,'” he said.
In an interview this week, Dahdouh, known for his tireless coverage of the war despite personal tragedies, recounted his toughest moment as a reporter.
“When a journalist becomes the news instead of reporting it,” he told the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, strapped into his blue press vest, as he referred to the devastating deaths of his family members. “And instead of getting the image and distributing it, he becomes the image.”
Less than 24 hours after posting a clip of the interview to his Instagram feed, Dahdouh was part of the story again.
And the same press vest was stained with blood.
Hazem Balousha in Amman, Miriam Berger in Jerusalem and Niha Masih in Seoul contributed to this report.
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