As Gaza bureau chief for the influential Qatar-based news network, Dahdouh covered the weeks of war that followed. The opening of the Israeli campaign expanded to reach southern Gaza. In December, Al-Dahdouh was injured and his cameraman killed in an Israeli drone strike while they were covering events from the southern town of Khan Yunis. He was back reporting the next day. Over this weekend, tragedy struck again when another Israeli drone strike targeted a car carrying a group of journalists on assignment near Rafah along Gaza's border with Egypt. The attack led to the killing of two Palestinian journalists, his son Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya.
A sad Wael said in a video that later emerged that Hamza was “my breath and my soul,” a sentiment that Hamza reciprocated in what ended up being one of his last social media posts. The worsening suffering of their families was a strong picture of what thousands of Palestinian families in Gaza are suffering amid daily bombing and the constant search for food and basic necessities to survive.
“In a video posted on social media, Wael appeared at Hamza’s wedding in 2022, smiling with his arms wide open as guests threw him, the groom’s father, aloft, then caught him again,” my colleagues reported. “On Sunday, he looked empty, standing over Hamza’s body in the morgue, holding his hand and muttering quietly. Then, he wrapped his arms around Wafa, his son's inconsolable widow, and placed her face on Hamza's chest.
according to A tally maintained by the Committee to Protect Journalistsin At least 79 journalists and media professionals They have been killed since the beginning of the war on October 7. Local Palestinian authorities put that number at more than 100. Either way, this is the highest death toll of journalists in the conflict zone in years – exceeding the death toll imposed on the press working in Ukraine over the past two years by just a matter of months. According to one estimate, one in 10 journalists in the Gaza Strip has already been killed.
The Israeli authorities claimed that the raid that killed Al-Dahdouh's son was targeting a “terrorist” inside the car who was flying a drone, putting Israeli forces “at risk.” For weeks, journalists in Gaza have been using drone footage to document the extent of the destruction caused by the Israeli bombing.
In response to an earlier story about the dead journalists written by my colleagues in November, the IDF sent The Washington Post a statement blaming the armed group Hamas for endangering civilians, including journalists, through its operations.
“The IDF does not intentionally target journalists, and takes measures to mitigate unintended harm to journalists and all civilians,” the statement said, adding that the army “targets all Hamas military activities throughout Gaza,” which involves “high-intensity strikes, which may Causes damage to buildings and surrounding areas.
Such explanations are insufficient for media organizations and human rights groups. Al Jazeera accused Israel of “violating the principles of press freedom” and deliberately targeting journalists. Sherif Mansour of the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement: “An independent investigation must be conducted into the killing of journalists Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya, and those behind their killing must be held accountable.” “The ongoing killing of journalists and their family members by Israeli army fire must stop: journalists are civilians, not targets.”
Before the war, Israel's critics had long complained about the relative impunity enjoyed by its army in the Palestinian territories. To this day, no Israeli soldier or official has suffered any consequences for the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shirin Abu Okla in the West Bank town of Jenin. Abu Okla was also a US citizen, but the Biden administration, while a strong defender of press freedom around the world, has been vocal about the need for accountability.
I did the same thing over the weekend. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters during a stop in Qatar, referring to Dahdouh's plight: “I personally am a parent. I cannot imagine the horror he was subjected to, not once, but now twice.” “It is an unimaginable tragedy, and this is also the case for too many innocent Palestinian men, women and children.”
The remaining journalists in Gaza work in the most challenging and dangerous environment in the world for the media. When they're not trying to track developments on the blurry and devastating front lines, they're documenting their daily struggles to simply get by, from collecting water, to searching the Internet, to mourning lost relatives and friends.
In November, Youmna Al-Sayed, another Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza, described to my colleagues the shock of visiting hospitals full of dead and wounded. “You constantly see bodies in front of you. You constantly see injuries,” she said. “It haunts me at night. It haunts when I want to eat. It haunts me when I want to sit down and rest. “You can't have any peace.”
On Sunday after Hamza was killed. She posted a picture of him on social media With the caption: “So much pain, so much heartache… we can't take it anymore.”
But Dahdouh, like many of his colleagues, continues his work. in the video It spread widely on social media He said Monday that he would continue reporting in memory of his fallen family. “As long as we are alive and as long as we are able to perform this duty, we will do so without hesitation,” he said.
