Al Jazeera to refer Arabic journalist’s killing to ICC

The Al Jazeera Media Network has said that it will refer the killing of its cameraman Samer Abudaqa in Gaza to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a statement on December 16, the Qatar-based network said it has instructed its legal team to “urgently” refer the case of what it called “the assassination” of Al Jazeera Arabic cameraman Samer Abudaqa to the court in The Hague, Caliber.Az reports.

Abudaqa was killed by a drone attack on December 15 while reporting on an earlier bombing of a school used as a shelter for displaced people in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

“Al Jazeera Media Network reiterates its denunciation and condemnation of the assassination crime of its colleague, Samer Abudaqa, who devoted 19 years with the Network to covering the ongoing conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories,” said the network’s statement.

“In addition to the assassination of Abudaqa by the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip, the legal file will also encompass recurrent attacks on the Network’s crews working and operating in the occupied Palestinian territories and instances of incitement against them.”

Targeting journalists is a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute.

The media network said it has set up a working group comprising its international legal team and international legal experts to submit a file to the court’s prosecutor.

Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Wael Dahdouh – who lost his wife, son, daughter and grandson in a previous Israeli bombing – was wounded in the same attack on December 15. He was hit by shrapnel on his upper arm and managed to reach the Nasser Hospital where he was treated for minor injuries.

But rescue teams were unable to immediately reach Abudaqa and others at the site as they needed approval from Israeli forces to bulldoze through the debris to get to the location.