talks to Al Jazeera English’s Gaza correspondent @TareqAzzom
about what it’s been like to report nonstop from Gaza since the start of the genocide.
7 April – from Al Jazeera: When Bisan Owda left her apartment in Gaza City after Israeli forces began bombing her neighborhood, she assumed she would be able to return home at some point.
Six months later, she is displaced in southern Gaza, along with over 1 million other Palestinians, with no way back to her home.
This is the story of those six months, of countless evacuations and a journey south through Gaza in search of ever-elusive shelter and safety. After half a year, more than 33,000 people have been killed, including at least 13,000 children.
Update: Ismail Al Ghoul was murdered 31 July 2024
On 7 April, Journalist Ismail Al Ghoul wrote the following:
A displaced journalist to transfer the picture…
How do I live?! At the moment I was writing this blog, I did not find anyone around me to talk to about the amount of pain in my heart, the harshness of life, and the difficulty of the circumstances we are going through.
As I sat in the middle of the night, many things came to my mind that I wanted to reveal. I found myself sitting alone in the emergency room and spent days alone without any companion. The wounds made me forget that I was alone, and the harshness of thinking did not make me think about my loneliness.
I decided to write what I felt and how. I live.
Since the beginning of the coverage, my home has essentially become hospitals, moving between Al-Shifa Medical Complex and Al-Ahly Arab Hospital, and displaced from one area to another,.
due to several circumstances, the most important of which is that our home is destroyed, and later that no one from my family lives with me, whether first-degree or close, so life conditions were difficult. The hardest thing that can be described is that my friends who were with me in the crew were captured by the occupation inside the Shifa Medical Complex. I used to take shelter with them, but now I am alone, without any comfort. My mother, father, wife, daughter, brothers, and sisters were forcibly displaced to the south, and friends and loved ones are between a martyr and a detainee. Oh, how difficult it is. life. We tried to overcome and overcome ourselves, but we are human beings, we are weak in the face of many feelings, and the biggest concern is always the family, my daughter who grew up far from me, my father who suffers from his illness, my mother whose features changed due to the circumstances. These are some of the circumstances. In short, we live without shelter, without family, and without loved ones, in the middle of a dark road, an unknown fate, and difficult circumstances, but there is no power or strength except in God. We seek help from God over all pains.
Ismail Al-Ghoul 12:47 AM 7-4-2024
Update 23 June:
@QudsNen Journalist Ismail al-Ghoul, based in northern Gaza, has shared the following on his X account: “Let me tell you, my friend, that I no longer know the taste of sleep. The corpses of children, the remains, and images of blood almost never leave my eyes. The screams of mothers and the cries and anguish of men do not leave my ears. I cannot get past the sound of children from beneath the rubble, unable to forget the voice of the little girl that echoes every moment and has become like a nightmare. It has become terrifying to stand before the scattered, stuck, stretched, and piled bodies, and even more terrifying when you pass by those who are fighting death under their homes, finding no way to escape and survive. I am exhausted, my friend.”
18 March 2024: Al Jazeera staff abducted
were disappeared.
The abductions are part of a long-standing and coordinated attack on Arabic and international media in Gaza by the occupation. From Shireen Abu-Akleh to Hamza Al Dahdouh, the Zionist regime continues to target and murder journalists who undertake the work of exposing Israel’s crimes to the world. Since October 7, Israel has killed 135 Palestinian journalists in targeted and deliberate attacks, including all journalists in Gaza who used aerial drones to show footage of the destruction from above. Journalists’ families, homes, and offices have been targeted as well, in an effort to psychologically destroy journalists so that they abandon their posts.
This is Zionism’s war on truth. Israel’s global public relations campaign is made possible through violent repression of Palestine’s truth-tellers. Today’s abductions demonstrate that Israel has and will continue to act under the assumption that it will not be held to account for its actions. Until the US and its allies act to the contrary, these assumptions will continue to go unchecked. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of these journalists, and the full sanctioning of Israel by world governments and international institutions for its crimes.
for your fearless journalism. We pray for your healing and the end of the genocide in Gaza.
Gaza-based journalist @MahaGaza
has been reporting on the devastating impacts of Israel’s war on the territory since October 7, for which she was given a “courage” award by @IWMF. But the Washington-based media group rescinded the award after an online smear campaign.
@MosabAbuToha
·Please please please help me help me help me. The family of my wife and relatives in Beit Lahia right now are under the rubble. More than 50 people are believed to be killed. There are now ambulances or anything. Please please. I’m crying I’m about to die.
The Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists says the IDF documents claiming to prove the journalists are terrorists “don’t appear to be credible” https://trib.al/JYrrb3Q
