Gaza had never been an easy place to be a journalist, even before the start of the genocide.
A 17-year Israeli and Egyptian siege that leaves you chronically deprived of even your most basic needs – never mind professional – and war after war that puts your life in very real, sudden danger.
You might have to hurtle towards the site of missile strikes, or Israel might bomb the very building your newsroom is in, because they claim it houses Hamas fighters.
For veteran Palestinian journalist Wael al-Dahdouh, who is Gaza bureau chief for Al Jazeera, these were obstacles he felt he had to overcome.
“My deep love and conviction in journalism has always been a driving force in my life. I cannot live just for mine or my family’s interests – there are those of my community, my people, the whole world,” Dahdouh told The New Arab, at Amnesty International's headquarters in London.
“Journalism is not just a job that earns you a living – it’s a mission. It’s a message. There are high ideals and standards that we all need to live for, and maybe even die for, too.”
Few journalists in the world have paid as high a price for persisting with their mission as Wael Dahdouh.
In October 2023, the month it started its genocide, Israel ordered residents of northern Gaza, which included Dahdouh’s family, to move southward, or else risk being killed.
While sheltering in central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed several members of his immediate family: his wife, son, daughter, grandson, niece, and nephew.
Dahdouh learned of the deaths while he was live on air. Images of him, visibly distraught while holding his slain grandson in his arms, travelled worldwide.
To the shock of his colleagues, Dahdouh returned to work immediately after burying so many members of his family. If he didn’t relay to the world what was happening in fast-emptying northern Gaza, who would?
“I found a power in me that made me even more determined to go ahead — not just do my job routinely, but with even more resolve, more professionalism,” he said.
“My colleagues wanted to give me some time to grieve and mourn my family, but I insisted that I had to immediately go back to doing my job, because there was nobody left there to do it,” he continued.
“I worried a bit about how I appeared in front of the cameras — the people that would see me, what would they make of me when I had just buried most of my family? I managed to keep a brave face. Some people might not have realised the disaster I had gone through just minutes before.”
Dahdouh and his remarkable determination were up against untiring brutality.
Emboldened by the lack of international resistance to its brutality, Israel escalated its onslaught. Losses, personal and professional, came in quick succession for Dahdouh. In December 2023, while reporting in Khan Younis, an Israeli drone strike wounded Dahdouh and killed his colleague Samer Abudaqa.
Again, Dahdouh quickly returned to work.
The next month, his son Hamza, also a journalist, was killed in Khan Younis alongside a colleague after an Israeli missile struck the car they were travelling in.
Dahdouh was flown to Qatar to get medical care for his injury at the end of January 2024, where he has since been based.
“I had a deep conviction that no matter what degree of risk there was, I had to do my job. I had to be there no matter what. But it seems the Israeli occupation forces had something else to say about that,” Dahdouh said, a brace still supporting his injured arm.
“We had come to accept the fact that we can be targeted as individuals, but when we realised that the Israeli occupation army intended to punish our families, our homes, our entire community, this made life very difficult. No matter how strongly you believe in something, it isn’t easy to face this atrocious pain and destruction all around you.”
In the almost 18 months since Dahdouh left Gaza, Israel’s targeting of journalists appears only to be growing in intensity and brazenness.
Among the assassinations of recent weeks were those of Anas al-Sharif and five other journalists in an Israeli airstrike on a tent sheltering media workers outside of the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City in August; later that month, two Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital in southern Gaza that killed five journalists, including photojournalist Mariam Abu Daqqa.
At least 248 journalists have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023.
“Israel wants to kill the people who convey the truth to the rest of the world so that they can do what they want, to commit genocide and get away with it, because there will be nobody there to act as a witness,” Dahdouh said.
Dahdouh did not mince his words when expressing how he and other Palestinians felt about Western journalists and news outlets accepting Israel’s justification for its actions in Gaza with little to no scrutiny.
“We weren’t just surprised, we were shocked, pained, disappointed, horrified... All these media organisations, all these big names that have for years been bombarding us with ideas of professionalism, transparency, objectivity — all of a sudden in our eyes, this collapsed,” he said.
“In Ukraine, one journalist is killed — of course, one life is too many, no matter where it is lost — and not only do all other journalists and colleagues rush to their cause, but governments and heads of state do too," he continued.
"In our case, there wasn’t even balanced reporting. This made us feel even more pain than the actual war that we were going through. Everyone gave in to the Israeli narrative. They totally capitulated to it and adopted it without even looking at the other side.”
While Western journalists and news organisations have been inadequate in their duty to cover the genocide, Palestinian journalists are fundamentally changing what journalism looks like and ought to be, Dahdouh said.
“Journalism school teaches you that no matter how big and important a story is, it is not worth a drop of a journalist’s blood. We’ve had to pay with gallons of blood. More than 200 colleagues have had to pay the ultimate price for it,” Dahdouh said.
“We in Gaza are contributing to a revival of some aspects of journalism, putting the job beyond just earning a living or maybe some fame or fortune... It’s much bigger than that. It’s more important than that. It’s about ideals, values, standards.”
Acts of solidarity like the international media blackout seen earlier this week are welcome and necessary, but they must be part of a sustained, coordinated campaign from all sectors of society that, in accumulation, pressure governments to act, Dahdouh said.
“Time is running out, and it’s running out fast," Dahdouh expressed.
"We feel as though we will wake up one day and the world will be faced with the reality that there is nobody left in Gaza, no more Gaza. Its history and geography are being wiped out. Unless we deal with it now… we face a moment that is even more tragic, and by then it will be too late," he said.
“What is happening to us now can happen to others tomorrow… people watching what is happening in Gaza, that the Israelis can get away with it in Gaza – someone else tomorrow will feel the same and probably do the same.”
Shahla Omar is a freelance journalist based in London. She was previously a staff journalist and news editor at The New Arab
Follow her on Instagram: @shahlatan