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Al Jazeera Journalist Samer Abudaqa Bleeds to Death After Israeli Drone Strike Amid Attack on Press

HeadlineDec 18, 2023

Al Jazeera is filing a complaint with the International Criminal Court over the killing of photojournalist Samer Abudaqa, who bled to death over the course of more than five hours on Friday after he was injured in an Israeli drone strike. He was hit while covering the aftermath of Israeli strikes on a U.N. school sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis. Israeli forces reportedly prevented rescue workers from reaching Abudaqa — at one point firing on an ambulance. The same attack injured Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh, who in October lost 12 members of his family in an Israeli airstrike, including his wife, son, daughter and grandson.

Elsewhere, Palestinian journalist Mohammed Balousha was shot in the thigh on Saturday in an apparent attack by an Israeli sniper. He was wearing a helmet and press badge when he was fired on. Balousha’s previous reporting about the deaths of premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit of Gaza’s besieged al-Nasr Children’s Hospital drew international attention.

In occupied East Jerusalem, photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf, who works for the Turkish Anadolu outlet, was hospitalized Friday after he was severely beaten by Israeli police officers. Alkharouf had been taking photographs outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque when officers pointed their weapons at him, then threw him to the ground and began beating and kicking him. The attack was caught live on CNN.

We’ll have more on Israel’s attacks on journalists later in the broadcast.

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