KHAN YUNIS, Friday, December 15, 2023 (WAFA) – Samer Abu Daqqa, a photojournalist working with Al Jazeera, was tragically killed this evening and another was injured in an Israeli airstrike which targeted a school sheltering displaced families in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, according to local sources.

The sources confirmed the death of Al Jazeera's Samer Abu Daqqa--after five hours of bleeding helplessly--and the injury of the channel's correspondent and Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh.

The airstrike hit the Khan Yunis Secondary School for Girls, which housed displaced people. The journalists were covering the aftermath of an earlier Israeli bombardment when the drone strike occurred. Both journalists were wearing helmets and protective gear, indicating that they were press personnel.

The sources further explained that several civilians and medical personnel were also wounded in the Israeli attack.

Al-Dahdouh was immediately transported to Nasser Medical Hospital in Khan Yunis, where his condition was described as moderate. However, the medical teams and ambulances were unable to reach the injured photojournalist, Samer Abu Daqqa, as Israeli artillery continued shelling the school and its surroundings. Communications were disrupted, leaving him bleeding for more than five hours until he succumbed to his wounds.

With the death of journalist Abu Daqqa, the toll of journalists killed by the Israeli occupation since the beginning of the aggression on Gaza on October 7 has risen to approximately 75, including 9 female journalists, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate reiterated its calls to international media and human rights institutions to continue pursuing accountability for the Israeli occupation's atrocities against Palestinian journalists, demanding justice for these heinous crimes.

M.N