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Saturday, December 16, 2023

"Israeli strike on school kills Al Jazeera cameraman in southern Gaza, network says," By Jack Jeffery | AP December 15, 2023

The post headline is that from WaPo carrying the AP feed. In large part:

CAIRO — An Israeli strike killed a Palestinian cameraman for the TV network Al Jazeera and wounded its chief Gaza correspondent Friday as they reported at a school in the south of the besieged territory, the network said.

Cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa and correspondent Wael Dahdouh had gone to the school in the southern city of Khan Younis after it was hit by a strike earlier in the day. While they were there, an Israeli drone hit the school with a second strike, the network said.

Dahdouh was heavily wounded in his arm and shoulder, while Abu Daqqa fell bleeding to the ground. [...]

Later that evening, Al Jazeera reported that an ambulance tried to reach the school to evacuate Abu Daqqa, but it had to turn back because roads were blocked by the rubble of destroyed houses.

Abu Daqqa continued to bleed for several more hours, until a civil defense crew found him dead, the network said in a statement.

Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour told a General Assembly meeting on the war that Israel “targets those who could document (their) crimes and inform the world, the journalists.”

[...] According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Abu Daqqa is the 64th journalist to be killed since the conflict erupted between Hamas and Israel: 57 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese journalists.

[...] The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment about Abu Daqqa’s death.

The Foreign Press Association, which represents several hundred journalists working for international news organizations including The Associated Press in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, said it grieves the death of Abu Daqqa, a longtime member.

“He is the first FPA member to be killed in Gaza in the war,” the organization said in a statement. “We consider this a grave blow to the already limited freedom of the press in Gaza and call on the army for a prompt investigation and explanation.”

Qatari-owned Al Jazeera said in a statement that it holds Israel “accountable for systematically targeting and killing Al Jazeera journalists and their families.”

In late October, Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandchild were killed in a strike on the home where they were sheltering in central Gaza. The network at the time accused Israel of intentionally targeting his family.

Earlier this month, a strike killed the father, mother and 20 other family members of another Al Jazeera correspondent, Momen Al Sharafi.

Dahdouh is well known as the face of Palestinians during many wars. He is revered in his native Gaza for telling stories of suffering and hardship to the outside world.

Israel’s air and ground assault over the past 10 weeks has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. The war broke out following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 240 hostage.

___

Associated Press journalist Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

War zones put journalists covering events at great risk. Israel has a motive to not want reporting of its war conduct. Whether these journalists were specifically targeted as AJ voices is uncertain. Either way, it is unfortunate because without those putting their own lives at risk to report actions and outcomes, the world would know less of how this war unfolds.

Vietnam was extensively covered. Iraq coverage was constrained. The motive to silence journalists, since Vietnam, has been in play. And even with coverage by embedded reporters, the Tonkin Gulf lie was not uncovered to the public until well after the event; and secret actions in Laos and Cambodia were a part of unreported or under-reported Vietnam related IndoChinese war by the CIA and our nation's ground and air forces. In that context, what is happening in Gaza is of a more limited scope and shorter in duration, whenever it might end and however extensive it may be. Flooding of tunnels with sea water in Gaza may happen, with reporting, but we will not see extensive live coverage of it being done.

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Much of warfare conduct and decision making is kept out out of contemporaneous public attention.

search = Westmoreland body count policy

Wartime deaths can be enemy combatants dying, or otherwise.