Hamza, 27, was on task for the Al Jazeera information community, the place his father is the Gaza bureau chief, when a strike “focused” the automotive he was touring in close to the southern metropolis of Rafah, the community mentioned.
One other journalist, Hazem Rajab, was significantly injured, in keeping with Al Jazeera. The Israel Protection Forces didn’t reply to requests for remark concerning the strike, or its supposed goal.
In a brutal battle that has killed practically 23,000 individuals in Gaza, together with scores of journalists, Wael al-Dahdouh, 53, has develop into a logo, his perseverance a uncommon supply of hope for Palestinians who really feel his tragedy echoes their very own.
In October, when the demise toll in Gaza had reached 7,000, Wael got here off the air to study that his spouse, two kids and toddler grandson had been killed in an Israeli strike. In December, because the toll neared 19,000, an Israeli drone assault wounded Wael and killed his cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, as they reported in Khan Younis.
On each events, he was again on air the following day.
In a video posted on social media, Wael is proven at Hamza’s wedding ceremony in 2022, all smiles and arms thrown huge open as friends chucked him, the groom’s father, aloft, after which caught him once more.
On Sunday, he regarded 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.
The ache turned “tougher and extra extreme” every time, Wael informed Al Jazeera on Sunday. “I want that the blood of my son Hamza is the final of journalists and the final of individuals right here in Gaza and for this bloodbath to cease.”
In feedback Sunday in Doha, Qatar, Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the killings as “an unimaginable tragedy,” saying that as a mum or dad he “can’t start to think about the horror” that Wael has skilled, “not as soon as, however now twice.”
The Biden administration says it has urged Israel to do extra to restrict civilian casualties in Gaza, however U.S. weaponry has performed a central function within the navy marketing campaign, and the US has vetoed successive U.N. Safety Council resolutions calling for a cease-fire.
Hamza’s final message on X, previously Twitter, was a message to his father. “Don’t despair,” he wrote, alongside a picture of Wael reporting from a blast website in his acquainted navy and white flak jacket, marked “PRESS.”
At the least 79 journalists and media staff have been killed for the reason that Oct 7. assault by Hamas on southern Israel, in keeping with the Committee to Shield Journalists. Round 1,200 individuals had been killed in that preliminary assault.
The punishing battle Israel launched in response, aimed toward dislodging Hamas from energy, has killed 22,835, in keeping with the Gaza Well being Ministry. The marketing campaign has additionally collapsed a lot of the well being system, and left the besieged Palestinian enclave nearing famine, in keeping with the United Nations.
The London-based charity Save the Youngsters mentioned Sunday that greater than 10 Palestinian kids per day, on common, have misplaced one or each of their legs for the reason that battle in Gaza started.
Trapped there, too, are greater than 120 Israeli and international hostages, kidnapped through the Oct. 7 assault. A lot of them are believed to be sick and subsisting on restricted rations. Their family and friends gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday, urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities to convey them dwelling.
“I would like them to come back again alive, and never in coffins,” mentioned 18-year-old Ofir Engel, till lately a captive himself, in a video broadcast to the group. Hamas launched 110 hostages in late November as a part of a take care of Israel that paused the combating for per week.
The Committee to Shield Journalists urged an impartial investigation Sunday into Hamza and Thuraya’s deaths, to find out whether or not they had been focused. Agence-France Presse, a world information company, mentioned that Thuraya, a contract journalist, had additionally labored as a stringer for the outlet since 2019.
“We vigorously condemn all assaults towards journalists doing their jobs and it’s important we’ve a transparent clarification as to what occurred,” world information director Phil Chetwynd mentioned.
In images and movies of the strike’s aftermath, which had been shared on-line, the automotive Hamza and Thuraya had been driving in was a mangled heap — its roof blown off, body twisted within the street, and two entrance seats singed with black. In a single video, a person from the group that had gathered across the automobile positioned a blanket over a passenger within the again seat, somebody who gave the impression to be wounded.
Throughout three months of battle, a whole lot of Palestinian journalists in Gaza have supplied the world with intimate views of the devastation the battle has dropped at individuals’s lives, whereas additionally making an attempt to outlive themselves and maintain their households protected.
They calm and console kids, scavenge for meals and water, and race between the hospitals and destroyed buildings to report on deaths and accidents, hoping that no pals or family are there once they arrive.
“The Al Dahdouh household and their journalist colleagues in Gaza are rewriting what it means to be a journalist at the moment with immensely courageous and never-seen-before sacrifices,” mentioned Sherif Mansour, Center East and North Africa program coordinator on the Committee to Shield Journalists.
In an interview with Al Jazeera English on Sunday, which devoted a lot of its rolling protection to the journalists’ slayings, Antoine Bernard, director of advocacy and help at Reporters With out Borders, mentioned that the group had “cheap grounds” to consider that a number of the reporters killed in Gaza for the reason that battle started had been focused.
“We declare on the minimal battle crimes have been perpetrated towards journalists,” he mentioned.
An investigation by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Worldwide concluded that IDF forces had focused a gaggle of Lebanese, American and Iraqi journalists in south Lebanon on Oct. 13. The Israeli navy has denied allegations that it targets journalists, insisting it targets solely militants.
“Israel says it doesn’t goal journalists. It wants to elucidate whether or not it used certainly one of its drones for a precision assault on these two journalists and why it launched strikes on these like Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, who was clearly carrying press insignia and away from direct combating,” mentioned Mansour.
In interviews Sunday, Hamza and Thuraya’s journalistic colleagues appeared bereft. Hind al-Khoudary, 28, spoke by means of tears as she recalled Hamza telling her to maneuver nearer to the place he was staying, a spot that he believed to be safer than the place she was within the metropolis of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
When she posted a video to social media exhibiting a lady baking cinnamon buns, Hamza had joked that he wished some himself.
Believing there may be security in numbers, a lot of Gaza’s journalists keep in tents and journey collectively. Adil Abu Taha, 33, a contract cameraman for Al-Kufiya TV, mentioned that he ate dinner with Hamza on Saturday evening, they usually had spoken of little however work. The dinner, he mentioned, was “easy” however “full of heat.”
Bashar Talib, 34, mentioned that the pair had shared breakfast Sunday morning, and had resolved to fulfill once more later that day.
“As a journalist, I really feel very afraid. I’m not the one one,” Talib mentioned. Even a number of the residents he interviewed lately appeared cautious of his presence, he added, “for concern that certainly one of us can be focused whereas we had been with them.”
In a publish on Fb, Anas al-Najjar, a correspondent for China Media Group, wrote that he would now not be reporting on this battle.
“Searching for security with household is a thousand instances higher than trying to find information to convey to a world that doesn’t know the which means of empathy,” he wrote. “Might God have mercy on journalist colleagues.”
Harb and Hassan reported from London, and Mahfouz from Cairo. John Hudson in Doha, Niha Masih in Seoul, Kareem Fahim in Istanbul, Hazem Balousha in Amman and Erin Cunningham in Washington contributed to this report.
