Conflicts & War

Al-Jazeera bureau chief’s son among 3 journalists killed in Israeli attacks

Rafah, Gaza, Jan 7 (EFE).- Three journalists, including the eldest son of al-Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, were killed in Israeli strikes on Sunday.

Wael al-Dahdouh’s son Hamza and Mustafa Thuraya were killed when the car in which they were traveling was attacked during news coverage in Rafah, in the southern part of the Palestinian enclave, the Gaza government said.

Photojournalist Ali Salem Abu Ajwa was killed in an airstrike in Gaza City, in the north of the coastal enclave.

The Gaza government, controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, condemned the strikes, saying Israel had “failed in its attempt” to “obscure the truth” with attacks on journalists.

“We call on press unions and media, as well as legal and human rights entities, to condemn this crime and denounce its repetition by the Israeli occupation,” the government said in a statement.

Hamas accused Israel of deliberately murdering the two journalists.

According to Gaza authorities, Israeli attacks have killed 110 journalists, including influencers and intellectuals, in Gaza since the war erupted on Oct. 7.

However, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says 77 reporters have been killed, in addition to 16 injured. Three are missing, and 21 have been detained during coverage of the war.

Four other members of al-Dahdouh’s family were killed in an Israeli bombing in the Nuseirat refugee camp along with 21 other people in October.

They included his wife Amna, his grandchild Adam, his 15-year-old son Mahmoud, and his seven-year-old daughter Sham.

Wael al Dahdouh was injured, and a colleague died in the attack by an Israeli drone a few days later while they were covering the bombing of a UN school in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza.

Videos and photographs on social media showed the journalist mourning the death of his son Hamza next to his lifeless body.

He called the killing “our destiny” and that “we must accept it.”

“Hamza was not just part of me. He was the whole of me. He was the soul of my soul. These are tears of sadness, of loss. These are tears of humanity,” the father said. “I call on the world to look closely at what’s happening in Gaza.”

Israel declared war on Hamas on Oct. 7 following an attack by the Islamist group involving rocket launches and the infiltration of thousands of militants who massacred about 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 in towns near Gaza.

Since then, the Israeli Army has launched a brutal air, land, and sea offensive in the Palestinian enclave, killing more than 22,800 Palestinians, mostly women, children, and the elderly.

The military offensive forced most of the two million Gazans to move out of their houses to the south of Gaza, triggering a severe humanitarian crisis. EFE

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