Colleagues of Palestinian journalist Yasser Murtaja, 31, who died of his wounds during clashes at the Israel-Gaza border on Friday, carry his body during his funeral in Gaza city April 7, 2018. — Reuters
A Palestinian journalist died on Saturday after being wounded by Israeli fire on Friday while covering deadly protests along the Israel-Gaza border, health officials said.
Yaser Murtaja, 30, a cameraman for Palestinian Ain Media, was the 29th Palestinian killed in the week‑long protests.
Photos showed Murtaja lying wounded on a stretcher wearing a navy-blue protective vest marked ‘PRESS’ in large black capital letters. Health officials said that a live bullet had penetrated the side of his abdomen and he succumbed to his wounds in hospital.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said that the army was looking into the incident and could not comment further at this stage.
The daily protests, dubbed ‘The Great March of Return’, began on March 30 along the Israel-Gaza frontier, reviving a longstanding demand for the right of return of Palestinian refugees to towns and villages from which their families fled, or were driven out, when the state of Israel was created.
Israel had stationed sharpshooters to stop attempts by the Palestinians to breach the border or sabotage the security fence.
Freelance photographer Ashraf Abu Amra told Reuters he was next to Murtaja, whom he said was wearing a helmet and protective vest. Abu Amra said that they were both clearly marked as journalists.
‘We were filming as youths torched tyres. We were about 250 meters from the fence,’ said Abu Amra. ‘Israeli forces opened fire and injuries began. Yaser and I ran to film when suddenly Yaser fell to the ground.
‘I screamed to him ‘Yaser are you alright?’. He didn’t respond and there was blood on the ground underneath him. I knew it was a bad injury and people carried him away,’ said Abu Amra.
Video footage showed Murtaja being carried to an ambulance with crowds around and black smoke rising from where protesters had set tyres alight, east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Murtaja was married with a two-year-old son. Hundreds of mourners, among them many journalists, attended his funeral on Saturday.
His body was covered with a Palestinian flag and his press jacket laid beside him on the stretcher as it was carried through the streets of Gaza City to his home for a last farewell.
‘I made him breakfast, he ate quickly, he was in a hurry to go to work,’ said Murtaja’s mother, Yusra, recounting the morning of the protest.
‘I thought he would recover from his injury, I didn’t expect his death, but God has chosen him as a martyr, thank God,’ she said, sitting on the ground as mourners came to the house to pay their respects.
Israel Radio, citing an unnamed source in Gaza, said that Murtaja had been operating a camera drone on Friday. Abu Amra and two other Palestinian journalists said that Murtaja was not operating a camera drone when shot.
Murtaja, on his Facebook page, had posted two aerial photos taken at the border in the past week. It was unclear if he had taken them himself.
At least three other journalists were wounded on Friday in other locations, Gaza officials said. There had been no Israeli casualties in the protests.
Israel’s response to the protests drew international criticism, with human rights groups saying it involved live fire against demonstrators posing no immediate threat to life.
Israel said that it was doing what it must to defend its border and its troops have been responding with riot dispersal means and fire ‘in accordance with the rules of engagement’.
Hamas, the Islamist group that run Gaza, said that the protests demanding the right of return of refugees would continue.
The Israeli government ruled out any right of return, fearing the country would lose its Jewish majority.
Israel said that many of the dead were militants and that Hamas, which was designated a terrorist organisation by the West, was using the protests as cover to launch attacks along the border and ignite the area, while putting Gaza’s civilians at risk.
Hamas rejected this.
Source: New Age.
