Tel Aviv Tribune Net correspondents
12/16/2023–|Last updated: 12/16/202311:25 AM (Mecca time)
Gaza- The Israeli occupation army assassinated Al-Jazeera cameraman in the Gaza Strip, Samer Abu Daqqa, with a drone missile while covering the bombing of Farhana School in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Strip, while the channel’s correspondent, Wael Al-Dahdouh, was injured.
Three Civil Defense men were martyred during their attempt to rescue Abu Daqqa, as the occupation army deliberately obstructed the ambulance teams’ access to him and left him bleeding for about 6 hours until he died as a martyr, joining the constellation of journalistic martyrs, which includes 89 martyred journalists who died under occupation fire since the outbreak of war on October 7. Last October.
In a statement, Tel Aviv Tribune Network held Israel “fully responsible for this heinous crime” and responsible for the systematic targeting of Tel Aviv Tribune’s employees and their families, calling on the international community, journalists’ defense organizations, and the International Criminal Court to take action to hold the occupation accountable.
Assassination
The martyr Abu Daqqa was injured and remained lying on the ground, bleeding and trapped in the vicinity of the school, without the ambulance and civil defense teams being able to reach and evacuate him, while his colleague Al-Dahdouh was able to embrace his wounds and walk on foot for hundreds of meters to reach the nearest ambulance.
In his testimony about the crime, Al-Dahdouh said, “They were targeted after they were accompanied by an ambulance that was coordinating the evacuation of a besieged family,” adding that they accompanied the ambulance and photographed the great devastation caused by the Israeli bombing, and were able to reach areas that no camera lens had reached. Before, even the emergency room and ambulance did not reach her.
After finishing filming, Al-Dahdouh and his team returned from the press mission on foot, because cars cannot reach those places due to the devastation caused by the Israeli bombing.
Al-Dahdouh continues, “On the way back, something suddenly happened… I just felt that something big had happened and dropped me to the ground, and the helmet and microphone fell. I tried to gather my strength, but I was barely able to stand, and I felt dizzy and dizzy…”
Al-Dahdouh said that he “became aware of severe bleeding in his shoulder and arm,” and despite that he had to walk little by little, covering hundreds of meters until he reached the end of a street where he found men from the Civil Defense who helped him. He added that he asked them to return to save Samer, who was screaming. But the paramedics told him that they had to leave, because the situation was very difficult, and they would send him another car.
He confirmed that the occupation forces opened fire on the ambulances that attempted to rescue our colleague Abu Daqqa, who was martyred after being deliberately targeted.
Biography and career
Samer Abu Daqqa was born in 1978 in the town of Abasan Al Kabira, one of the towns east of Khan Yunis, whose residents are famous for working in the agricultural profession. His family is one of the most famous families in these towns, and has a large share of martyrs and wounded in all the Israeli wars on Gaza.
He is married and the father of three boys and a girl who live with their mother in Belgium. According to those close to Abu Daqqa, he obtained “unification” approval to join his family members and reside with them in Belgium, and he was planning to travel to them after the Israeli war on Gaza stopped.
The martyr joined Tel Aviv Tribune as a photographer and editing technician in 2004, and enjoys good relations with his colleagues who were shocked by his departure in a treacherous assassination operation.
Social media platforms were filled with pictures of Abu Daqqa, along with touching posts by his friends and colleagues mourning him and enumerating his virtues. Many were also keen to re-publish a song performed by Samer’s son Zain, in whose words he expresses his longing for his father and his longing to see him.
Journalists also re-published a video clip showing a very emotional Samer with tears in his eyes as he mourned his colleague, the official Palestine TV correspondent, Muhammad Abu Hatab, who was martyred along with his family in an air strike that destroyed their home in the city of Khan Yunis.
Convictions
The martyrdom of Abu Daqqa caused a wide resonance, and his assassination was widely condemned by Palestinian countries, governments, factions, and Palestinian, Arab, and international press and human rights bodies.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) extended its condolences to the martyr’s family, his family, Tel Aviv Tribune, and the journalistic family in Gaza, and called for “holding the entity and its neo-Nazi leaders accountable for the horrific war crimes they are committing against our Palestinian people and against all legally protected groups, especially journalists and medical and humanitarian personnel.” .
For its part, the Government Information Office in Gaza said, “The occupation army deliberately targeted the Tel Aviv Tribune crew for the fourth time in a row in a complete crime in violation of international law,” calling on press unions and media, human rights and legal bodies to condemn this crime.
The office added in a statement that targeting the Tel Aviv Tribune crew comes within the framework of “intimidation and intimidation of journalists, and a failed attempt to obscure the truth and prevent them from media coverage,” stressing that the occupation army killed 89 journalists during the war on Gaza, arrested 8 others, and wounded many of them.