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When Palestinian journalist Váil Dahdúh lost several family members to grenade attacks last October, his enormous personal tragedy was followed around the world.
The man who covers war news for the Al Jazeera server and is known to millions of viewers (mainly from the Arab part of the world) as a journalist who also covered earlier rounds of the conflict, mourning his loved ones and holding them in his arms Arms in pictures and videos.
Then – after an attack on one of the IDP camps attributed to Israel – he lost his wife Amna, his grandson Adam, his 15-year-old son Mahmoud and his seven-year-old daughter Sham. He learned of her loss while helping broadcast live footage, the AP reports.
The deaths of loved ones did not break him, but rather motivated his efforts to continue to bear witness to the suffering in Gaza.
Another tragedy occurred in Dahdúh on Sunday. His eldest son Hamza died in Israeli shelling.
“Soul of my soul”
Hamza, 28, a freelance journalist and cameraman with experience at Al Jazeera, was with other journalists on their way from Khan Younis to an area near Rafah. According to the British public broadcaster BBC, the group collected testimonies from civilians following the recent shelling. But their car was hit by an Israeli drone.
In addition to Dahdúh, another freelancer, Mustafa Thuria, also died. Ahmed Buraš and Amir Abu Amr were injured, reports the American newspaper The New York Times.
The war in Gaza
Images and videos of a grieving father holding the sheet-covered hand of his late son – and the fifth family member killed – were once again shared by media worldwide. “Hamza wasn’t just a part of me, he was my whole self. He was the soul of my soul. These are tears of sadness, of loss. “They are the tears of humanity,” he said at the funeral.
In a statement, Al Jazeera strongly condemned the attack on the 28-year-old journalist. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken then described Hamza’s death as an “unimaginable tragedy”.
“As a mother myself, I cannot imagine the horror he went through, not once but twice. “It is an unimaginable tragedy that has also happened to too many innocent Palestinian men, women and children,” AP quoted him as saying.
Váil Dahdúh also said this time that he would not stop working. “The whole world must look at what is happening in the Gaza Strip… What is happening is a great injustice to the defenseless people, the civilian population. “It is also unfair to us journalists,” he said.
Dozens killed
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 79 journalists – 72 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese – have died in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists.
CPJ further reports that in some cases these were journalists and media professionals working for media companies under the leadership of the Hamas movement. However, several others worked as freelancers for foreign or non-Hamas media.
Local journalists and media professionals are those who cover events in the Gaza Strip on a daily basis for local and international media. And this despite the fact that they had to lose their loved ones or leave their homes every day. Israel and Egypt continue to block foreign reporters from entering the Gaza Strip, AP warns.
Only Hamza Dahdúh had one million followers on Instagram. On Saturday he posted a photo of his father wearing a journalist’s helmet and vest on the social network. “Do not despair of healing and do not despair of God’s mercy… Be sure that God will reward you for your patience,” he wrote in the caption.
Israel denies guilt
Israel has long denied attacks on journalists in the Gaza Strip. Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Britain’s BBC that “Israel does not deliberately attack journalists.”
“We are the only country in the Middle East that has a truly free press. “We are the only country in the entire region where the press can write bad things and criticize government officials,” he continued.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement to the BBC that “an IDF aircraft identified and attacked a terrorist who was piloting an aircraft that posed a threat to IDF units.”
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