The network condemned the Israeli strike targeting its crew in northern Rafah on Tuesday, describing the attack as “a full-fledged crime.”
Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza Ismail Abu Omar was admitted to the intensive care unit at the European Hospital on Wednesday after sustaining severe injuries from an Israeli air strike.
Abu Omar and his colleague, cameraman Ahmed Matar, were injured by a direct Israeli air strike in the Miraj area, northern Rafah. Abu Omar’s right leg was amputated.
Speaking to the Qatar-based network, doctors said Abu Omar had to be transferred to the ICU due to continuous bleeding.
“Ismail’s condition is critical, and we are facing difficulties in providing treatment,” Abu Omar’s doctor told Al Jazeera, noting that the lack of medical resources is affecting their ability to provide the journalist with adequate care.
Al Jazeera condemned the Israeli targeting of its crew in northern Rafah on Tuesday, describing the attack as “a full-fledged crime added to Israel’s crimes against journalists” in a statement.
The network noted that targeting both of its members is “a new part in the series of the deliberate targeting of [its] journalists and correspondents in Palestine.”
“The network stresses that this targeting comes as intimidation to journalists to prevent them from reporting the heinous crimes committed by the occupation army against innocent civilians in Gaza,” Al Jazeera said.
Al Jazeera also renewed its call for “the international community and media freedom organisations to take immediate measures to protect journalists in Gaza and to hold the Israeli occupation army accountable.”
The attack on Al Jazeera’s crew is the latest out of at least five others that targeted the network’s journalists and their families.
This was evident on October 25, 2023, when Israel killed four members of prominent Al Jazeera journalist and Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh’s family.
Israel killed Dahdouh’s wife, 15-year-old son, seven-year-old daughter and infant grandson in a strike in southern Gaza, despite Israel declaring the area to have been a safe zone.
Dahdouh was then injured on December 15 in an Israeli airstrike at the Farhana school in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, where Al Jazeera’s cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, was killed.
Abu Daqqa succumbed to his injuries after bleeding for six hours. Israel prevented medics from reaching him by bombing the area nonstop and denying him access to ambulances.
Israel then killed Dahdouh’s eldest son, Hamza, on January 7 when it targeted his vehicle in Gaza alongside Palestinian journalist Mustafa Thurayya. Dahdouh was evacuated from Gaza to Doha on January 16 to receive medical treatment for a critical injury he sustained while with Abu Daqqa.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for an independent investigation into whether Al Jazeera’s Abu Omar and Matar had been targeted.
“The Israeli drone strike that injured critically Al Jazeera reporter Ismail Abu Omar and freelance camera operator and photojournalist Ahmed Matar is another horrific example of the high personal price that journalists in Gaza are paying to cover the war so that the world can witness what is happening,” Sherif Mansour, CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator in Washington D.C, said.
Journalists make up more than 120 of the 28,576 Palestinians killed by Israel since the beginning of the genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Medics on the ground have been working around the clock to treat tens of thousands of injuries in Gaza with an extreme shortage of supplies and lack of facilities.
Only 12 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional due to intense Israeli bombardment, raids, and lack of medical resources, according to the United Nations.
On Wednesday, Israeli occupation forces heavily targeted the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, after besieging the facility for 25 days, Palestine’s news agency (Wafa) reported.
Local sources confirmed to Wafa on Thursday that Israeli occupation forces stormed the Nasser Medica Complex’s courtyard and opened fire on different parts of the building.
At least one Palestinian has been killed and several others have been injured, with the total number is still unconfirmed.
The medical facility has 300 health personnel, 450 sick and wounded people, and 10,000 displaced persons. Israeli occupation forces forced a number of those inside the Nasser Medical Complex to evacuate to Rafahm, with some being detained en route, according to Wafa.
Israel has escalated its attacks on southern Gaza since the start of the year, aiming to forcibly displace the 2.2 million population under the pretext of eliminating Hamas. However, women and children make up at least 70% of the total death toll.
Israel particularly intensified its attacks on Rafah since last week under its broader plans to invade the area, marking another dangerous development in the war.
Rafah now has more than one million displaced Palestinians crammed up in fragile tents after Israel reduced the once vibrant coastal enclave to rubble.
On Tuesday, Martin Griffiths, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, raised concerns about Israel’s latest military plans.
“I’m sounding the alarm once again: Military operations in Rafah could lead to a slaughter in Gaza. They could also leave an already fragile humanitarian operation at death’s door,” he said in a statement.
He added that “Israel cannot continue to ignore” calls from the international community to halt the war in Gaza.
