In a statement, Al Jazeera accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists, and condemned “the ongoing crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces against journalists and media professionals in Gaza.” She also pledged to take “all legal measures to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.”
Al-Dahdouh was covering the attack in late October when he received news that his wife, daughter and other son had been killed in an Israeli air strike. His grandson, who was injured in the same raid, died hours later. The Qatari Broadcasting Corporation later broadcast footage of him crying over his son's body while still wearing his blue press jacket.
Al Jazeera journalist Wael Dahdouh holds the hand of his son Hamza, who also worked for Al Jazeera and was killed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah in the Gaza Strip.credit: AP
In December, an Israeli raid on a school in Khan Yunis injured Dahdouh and Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa. Al-Dahdouh was able to run for help, but Abu Daqqa bled to death hours later as ambulances were unable to reach him due to blocked roads, according to Al-Jazeera.
Earlier in December, an airstrike killed a father, mother and 20 other family members of another Al Jazeera correspondent, Moamen Al-Sharafi.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said he was “deeply sorry” for Dahdouh's loss.
download
“As a parent, I cannot imagine the horror he went through, not once, but now twice. This is an unimaginable tragedy, and this is also the case for too many innocent Palestinian men, women and children,” Blinken said during his stop in Qatar. Blinken heads to Israel on Monday.
Blinken assured Arab leaders on Sunday that Washington opposes the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank, as he looks to launch talks on Gaza's post-war future.
“Palestinian civilians should be able to return to their homes as soon as conditions allow. They cannot be pressured, nor should they be pressured, to leave Gaza,” Blinken said in a press conference following a separate meeting with senior Qatari officials in Doha.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 70 Palestinian reporters, as well as four Israeli and three Lebanese, have been killed since the October 7 Hamas attack sparked the war in Gaza and escalated the fighting along the Israeli border with Lebanon.
More than 22,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war, most of them women and minors, according to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. About 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed in Israel during the initial Hamas attack.
Israel denies targeting journalists and says it does its best to avoid harming civilians, blaming the high death toll on the fact that Hamas is fighting in densely populated urban areas.
About 85% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million fled their homes, most of them taking refuge in safe areas designated by Israel in southern Gaza. But Israel also carries out regular strikes in those areas, leading many Palestinians to feel that there is no safe place in the besieged area.
Palestinian journalists have played an essential role in covering the conflict for local and international media, although many have lost loved ones and been forced to flee their homes due to the fighting.
Israel and Egypt, which impose a blockade on Gaza, have largely barred foreign reporters from entering Gaza since the war began.
AFP, Reuters
Get a direct note from our foreigners Reporters About what's making headlines around the world. Subscribe to the weekly What in the World newsletter here.
