Samer Abudaqa

Samer Abudaqa was an Al Jazeera cameraman for nearly 20 years, born in 1978, a father of four. On 15 December 2023, he was filming with bureau chief Wael Dahdouh at the Farhana school in Khan Younis — a school sheltering displaced families — when an Israeli drone strike hit them. Dahdouh was wounded but reached an ambulance. Abudaqa was hit in the lower body and could not walk. He was left to bleed to death for over five hours as Israeli forces blocked ambulances and rescue workers from reaching him, despite a coordinated effort involving over 140 journalists and multiple humanitarian organisations pressing the IDF for access. His family was safely in Belgium, but he had insisted on staying in Gaza to cover the war. He was the first Al Jazeera journalist killed in the current war.