Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abudaqa laid to rest in southern Gaza

Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abudaqa has been laid to rest in southern Gaza, with dozens of mourners, including journalists, paying their respects to the cameraman killed in an Israeli drone attack.

The funeral was held on Saturday in the city of Khan Younis. Abudaqa’s family, friends and colleagues bid a tearful farewell as his body was lowered into the ground.

Abudaqa, a cameraman for Al Jazeera Arabic in Gaza, was hit in an Israeli drone attack while reporting at Farhana school in Khan Younis. His colleague, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Wael Dahdouh, who lost his wife, son, daughter and grandson in a previous Israeli bombing, was wounded.

Journalists in Gaza are carrying a “human and noble message” for the world amid the ongoing war and will continue to work despite Israeli attacks, Dahdouh said in his eulogy.

“We will continue to do our duty with professionalism and transparency,” he said, as mourners around him wept.

On Friday, Dahdouh was hit by shrapnel on his upper arm, and managed to walk to Nasser hospital alone, where he was treated for minor injuries. He said the network’s crew was accompanying civil defence rescuers on a mission to evacuate a family after its home was bombed.

“We captured the devastating destruction and reached places that had not been reached by any camera lens since the Israeli ground operation started,” Dahdouh said from his hospital bed.