Three journalists were killed this Sunday in the Gaza Strip in an apparent Israeli attack, including Hamza al-Dahdouh, one of the sons of Wael al-Dahdouh, chief correspondent for Qatari television Aljazeera in the Palestinian enclave.
Wael al-Dahdouh had already lost his wife, two other children and a grandson, and almost died, at the start of the war, according to the American news agency AP.
Despite the devastating impact of the war on the family, Dahdouh has continued to report from Gaza, becoming a symbol of the dangers faced by Palestinian journalists, dozens of whom have been killed while covering the conflict.
“Hamza meant everything to me (…) although we are full of humanity, they [Israel] “They are full of murderous hatred,” Dahdouh told Aljazeera television, quoted by the French agency AFP.
“I hope that my son Hamza’s blood is the last one shed by journalists and the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip,” he added, from the hospital where he was, in tears, hugging his son’s body, surrounded by family and journalists. .
Gaza authorities said Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya were killed when the car they were traveling in was shot at in Rafah, in the southern Palestinian enclave.
Mustafa Thuraya, in his 30s, has worked for the AFP since 2019.
According to colleagues at the French agency, he also worked at the Reuters and AP agencies, as well as the Qatari channel Aljazeera and the American CNN.
The AFP asked for a reaction from the Israeli army, which asked for the exact “coordinates” of the attack.
A third media professional, photojournalist Ali Salem Abu Ajwa, was killed in an airstrike in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave, according to the Spanish agency EFE.
The Gaza government, controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, condemned the deaths and denounced Israel’s “failed attempt” to “obscure the truth” by attacking journalists.
“We call on press and media unions and legal and human rights organizations to condemn this crime and denounce its repetition by the occupation. [israelita]”he declared in a statement.
Hamas accused Israel of deliberately killing Hamza and Mustafa, who were traveling together, calling it a “war crime” intended to terrorize journalists into stopping reporting in Gaza.
According to the non-governmental organization Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 77 journalists were killed while covering the war, which began three months ago.
CPJ also recorded 16 journalists injured, three missing, and 21 detained.
The war began after Hamas carried out an attack on Israeli soil precisely three months ago, on October 7, which left around 1,200 dead and two hundred hostages, according to authorities.
The Israeli response led to a high level of infrastructure destruction in the Gaza Strip and a human crisis of unpredictable consequences, with Hamas recording more than 22,800 deaths from Israeli bombings.
Source: TSF
