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Demands escalate for Al Jazeera cameraman to leave Gaza for treatment

The international campaign demanding that the Israeli government allow Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi Al-Wahidi to leave the Gaza Strip for treatment has escalated, after his condition deteriorated since he was shot by the occupation forces on October 9 of last year.

The campaign comes as part of the demands of activists, human rights defenders, international organizations, and the Committee to Protect Journalists, and was joined by journalists, media professionals, and activists from Israel.

The Qatar Press Center had condemned the Israeli occupation’s intransigence in not allowing Al-Wahidi to travel for treatment outside Gaza, violating all international laws and conventions that protect the lives of journalists, after deliberately targeting Al-Wahidi and other Palestinian journalists while they were performing their work in Gaza, and preventing the injured from receiving appropriate treatment, which leads to the deterioration of their health and their exposure to dangerous health conditions that may lead to their death.

The center confirmed in several statements that the Israeli occupation is adopting a deliberate aggressive behavior towards the press crews, the latest of which was targeting colleague Fadi Al-Wahidi (24 years old) with bullets from an Israeli sniper while he was participating in the press coverage of the incursion of the occupation army forces on the ground in the northern Gaza Strip Governorate.

The bullet, which hit two vertebrae at the top of the spine, caused a severing of the spinal cord, causing him partial paralysis and confining him to the hospital bed. Al Jazeera Network condemned the Israeli occupation army’s targeting of its crews, stressing that the deliberate targeting of journalists is a flagrant violation of international laws that protect journalism in war zones. Reporters Without Borders, Free Press Unlimited, and the Committee to Protect Journalists sent a letter to the Israeli authorities demanding that they allow the urgent evacuation of Al Jazeera’s cameraman. The letter, addressed to the Israeli military body responsible for overseeing civil affairs in the Palestinian territories (COGAT), warned of Fadi al-Wahidi's situation. Since the beginning of the genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, and over the course of 471 days, the occupation army has deliberately targeted journalists, leading to the martyrdom of more than 206 male and female journalists, according to official sources.

The director of Al-Helou International Hospital, Dr. Tharwat Al-Helou, confirmed that Fadi Al-Wahidi's condition is deteriorating, which requires expediting his travel and treatment outside Gaza. After a ceasefire agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas, Reporters Without Borders said in a statement that the Israeli authorities must urgently authorize Al-Wahidi's transfer to a hospital outside the Gaza Strip. UN experts held Israel responsible for the deterioration of the Al Jazeera cameraman's health, due to its repeated refusal to evacuate him medically, despite the impossibility of treating him in Gaza due to the collapse of the health system. UN experts said Israel was obligated under international law to facilitate his evacuation.