Al Jazeera cameraman killed in Gaza, network confirms

Samer Abu Daqqa was injured by Israeli shelling along with his colleague

The aftermath of an Israeli air strike in Khan Younis. Rescuers were unable to reach cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa to take him for treatment due to widespread destruction in the area. Reuters

A cameraman for Al Jazeera was killed on Friday in the southern Gaza Strip, a representative for the Arabic broadcaster said.

Samer Abu Daqqa was injured along with his colleague Wael Al Dahdouh while covering the bombing of a school, Al Jazeera said in an earlier statement.

Rescuers were unable to reach Abu Daqqa to take him for treatment.

“The rescuers just managed to retrieve the cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa’s body,” the representative said.

Al Jazeera said the journalists had been hit by a missile fired from a drone in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Al Dahdouh was able to reach a hospital, but Abu Daqqa was unable to be transferred due to widespread destruction in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera said.

Abu Daqqa, born in 1978, was the father of four children and a resident of the town of Abasan Al Kabira near Khan Younis.

In October, Al Dahdouh's wife and two children were killed with several others by an Israeli air strike while sheltering at a relative's home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement on Friday that at least 63 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7.

“To put it in context for you, since the start of the [Israel-Gaza] war on October 7 we’ve been able to verify the killings of 63 journalists in the war, whereas last year we documented 68 killings of journalists and media workers worldwide,” the organisation's president Jodie Ginsberg said.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: "I would just add that our deepest sympathies and condolences go out to the family and and the loved ones and the colleagues and the coworkers.”

Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 240 hostages, of whom 105 have been released and several killed, according to Israeli officials.

Aiming to eliminate Hamas, Israel launched a retaliatory military offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 18,700 people, mostly women and children, according to the enclave's Health Ministry.