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Wael al-Dahdouh is without doubt one of the most well-known faces in Gaza — and he has turn into a logo of the embattled territory’s calamity. Whereas reporting throughout the early levels of the battle, the veteran correspondent for Al Jazeera realized that the airstrikes he had lined from the bottom all day had killed his spouse, two of his youngsters and an toddler grandson. Stricken however regular, he returned to the job the next day.
Because the Gaza bureau chief for the influential Qatar-based information community, Dahdouh reported on the weeks of struggle that adopted. The aperture of the Israeli marketing campaign widened, reaching Gaza’s south. In December, Dahdouh was wounded and his cameraman killed in an Israeli drone strike whereas they have been reporting from the southern city of Khan Younis. He was again reporting the following day. Over this weekend, tragedy struck once more when one other obvious Israeli drone strike focused a automotive carrying a bunch of journalists on project near Rafah alongside Gaza’s border with Egypt. The assault killed two Palestinian journalists — his son, Hamza al-Dahdouh, and Mustafa Thuraya.
A grieving Wael mentioned in a video that emerged later that Hamza was “my breath and my soul,” a sentiment Hamza had reciprocated in what ended up being certainly one of his final social media posts. Their household’s compounded struggling has served as a potent snapshot for what 1000’s of Palestinian households in Gaza are enduring amid day by day bombardments and a relentless seek for meals and the fundamental requirements for survival.
“In a video posted on social media, Wael is proven at Hamza’s marriage ceremony in 2022, all smiles and arms thrown vast open as company chucked him, the groom’s father, aloft, after which caught him once more,” my colleagues reported. “On Sunday, he seemed empty, standing over Hamza’s physique on the morgue, clutching his hand and muttering softly. Later, he wrapped his arms round Wafaa, his son’s inconsolable widow, as she positioned her face on Hamza’s chest.”
Household of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief killed in airstrike
Journalists in Gaza shared movies on-line after the territory misplaced nearly all web and telephone hyperlinks. Web connectivity was partially restored on Oct. 29. (Video: The Washington Submit)
In keeping with a tally maintained by the Committee to Shield Journalists, at the very least 79 journalists and media staff have been killed for the reason that begin of the struggle on Oct. 7. Native Palestinian authorities put that quantity above 100. In both case, it’s the only largest dying toll for journalists in a battle zone for years — surpassing the toll exacted on the press working in Ukraine over the previous two years in only a matter of months. By one estimate, 1 out of each 10 journalists within the Gaza Strip has already been killed.
Israeli authorities claimed the strike that killed Dahdouh’s son was focusing on a “terrorist” contained in the automotive who was working a drone that put Israeli forces “in danger.” Gazan journalists have, for weeks, used drone footage to doc the dimensions of destruction wrought by Israel’s bombardments.
In response to an earlier story on slain journalists by my colleagues in November, the Israel Protection Forces despatched The Washington Submit a press release the place it blamed militant group Hamas for endangering civilians, together with journalists, with their operations.
“The IDF doesn’t purposefully goal journalists, and takes measures to mitigate unintended hurt to journalists and all civilians,” the assertion mentioned, including that the army was “focusing on all Hamas army exercise all through Gaza,” which entailed “excessive depth strikes, which can trigger harm to surrounding buildings and areas.”
Journalists killed within the Israel-Gaza struggle: A have a look at the lives misplaced
Such explanations are inadequate to media organizations and rights teams. Al Jazeera accused Israel of “violating rules of freedom of the press” and intentionally focusing on the journalists. “The killings of journalists Hamza Al Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya have to be independently investigated, and people behind their deaths have to be held accountable,” mentioned CPJ’s Sherif Mansour in a press release. “The continual killings of journalists and their relations by Israeli military hearth should finish: journalists are civilians, not targets.”
Earlier than the struggle, Israel’s critics lengthy bemoaned the relative impunity with which its army acted within the Palestinian territories. To at the present time, no Israeli soldier or official has suffered any penalties for the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh within the West Financial institution city of Jenin. Abu Akleh was additionally a U.S. citizen, but the Biden administration, whereas a staunch defender of press freedom worldwide, solely paid lip service to the necessity for accountability.
It did the identical over the weekend. “I’m a guardian myself, I can’t start to think about the horror that he has skilled, not as soon as, however now twice,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed reporters throughout a cease in Qatar, referring to Dahdouh’s ordeal. “That is an unimaginable tragedy and that’s additionally been the case for a lot too many harmless Palestinian males, girls, youngsters.”
Aspiring Gaza journalist Plestia Alaqad documented her life earlier than and after Oct. 7 on Instagram. (Video: The Washington Submit)
Gaza’s remaining journalists are working on the planet’s most difficult and harmful atmosphere for the media. When not trying to trace developments on the blurred, battered entrance traces, they’re documenting their very own day by day struggles to easily get by, from gathering water, to looking for web, to mourning misplaced family members and buddies.
In November, Youmna Elsayed, one other Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza, described to my colleagues the trauma of visiting hospitals filled with the lifeless and wounded. “You’re consistently seeing our bodies in entrance of you. You’re consistently seeing accidents,” she mentioned. “It haunts me at night time. It haunts once I wish to eat. It haunts me once I wish to sit and relaxation. You possibly can’t get any peace.”
On Sunday, after Hamza’s killing, she posted a picture of him on social media with the caption, “an excessive amount of ache, an excessive amount of heartache … we are able to’t take it anymore.”
However Dahdouh, like a lot of his colleagues, is carrying on. In a video extensively shared on social media Monday, he mentioned he would preserve reporting within the reminiscence of his fallen household. “So long as we’re alive and so long as we’re in a position to carry out this responsibility, we’ll achieve this with out hesitation,” he mentioned.