Gaza: Where wearing a Press vest is a death sentence

Three human skulls are assembled neatly on a table next to a Press vest. Bones of other limbs are placed side by side. The headline reads that a missing journalist’s skull was found, along with her two brothers in the rubble of their home. “The horror, the horror …” the dying words of Colonel Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness have repeatedly run through my head over the past two years. For Kurtz, the ivory trader in the Congo, the horror represents the terrifying darkness that sits inside every human being. This is the darkness that we are live-streaming.

There has never been anything like this in the history of humankind.

Juxtaposed with the skulls, is a young woman dressed in hijab with a bright smile, sitting in front of a microphone and behind her the background screen reads 98.20FM. She has a pen in hand and is about to deliver the news. It is hard to reconcile the dead empty skull, with the lively dedicated face next to it. Anywhere else in the world, this one single image, so striking in its nature, would have caused an uproar. But this journalist is Palestinian. She is Marwa Musallam, and her skull was found with her brothers, Montaser and Moataz, 45 days after their home was bombed in eastern Gaza. An explosion hit and their roof collapsed on top of them, the building was levelled and all three were buried under the rubble – ambulance crews were unable to reach them. She had managed to signal she was still alive. Some had rallied for her rescue, but it was too late; she was buried alive.

Since the genocide began, close to 300 journalists have been killed. I’ve written about all the numbers; this piece is not for numbers or to convince. Instead it is to exorcise our own trauma as journalists in relation to feeling everything we see our colleagues go through. What it means to bear witness to bearing witness.

One image is etched into my memory forever. It is the face of the most senior Palestinian journalist, Wael al-Dahdouh, the bureau chief of Al-Jazeera in Gaza city hearing that his oldest son was killed. Earlier on in the genocide in October 2023, his wife, daughter (aged 7)  and son (aged 15) were killed in an airstrike, in addition to eight other relatives. He learnt this heartbreaking news while broadcasting live. Later, while identifying the bodies, exclaimed in pain, “They took revenge on us through our children!”

On 15 December 2023, while on a story in Haifa, Al-Dahdouh himself was hit by an Israeli missile in a targeted attack which killed his cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa. He sustained injuries but returned to work soon afterwards.

The horror continued. The death that broke him came in January 2024, when an airstrike in Khan Younis took the life of his oldest son Hamza Al-Dahdouh (aged 27), who had followed in his fathers footsteps and also worked as a journalist for Al Jazeera. Wael’s spirit was finally broken and it broke all of us too. We cried as he uttered the words at his Janazah: “Hamza was not just part of me; he was the whole of me. He was the soul of my soul. These are the tears of sadness and loss, the tears of humanity.”

Wael was deeply loved, respected and Palestinians referred to him as Al-Jabal (The Mountain) for his patience, nobility and ṣumūd, (steadfastness). But even he was not immune from the horror.  He continued reporting but it wasn’t the same . Wael was later injured again and then evacuated out of Gaza. But what does this level of loss do to the human heart?

It is impossible too, to forget the footage of Ahmed Mansour, journalist and editor for Palestine Today, sitting while burning alive on camera. An Israeli airstrike hit a journalists’ tent on the grounds of the Nasser Hospital in April this year in the early hours of the morning. The footage shows Ahmed sitting down, trying to move his body while engulfed by flames and others desperately screaming and trying to save him. At one point he raises his hand. It was terrifying and disturbing. He died in hospital that night. At his funeral his wife Nidaa said, “Ahmad burned in front of the whole world … The whole world saw him as he was burning, and nobody was able to help him.”

On August 25,  Israel attacked the Nasser Hospital four times. Initial reports suggested two strikes. Journalists were standing on a staircase to connect with the wi-fi. The staircase was hit by one of the strikes. Five journalists died in that attack. Their deaths were captured live on TV. The Israeli occupying force claimed responsibility but also stated this was a “mistake”. How do you commit a mistake four times?

A headline reads “Journalists in Gaza are writing their own obituaries”. This started with the death of 23-year–old Hossam Shabat on 24 March , killed in a drone strike on his car while travelling through northern Gaza. He who wrote a devastating note that said when the genocide began he was 21, with big dreams as a college student: “I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents — anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side.”

Just some weeks ago, an Al-Jazeera journalist,  Anas Al-Sharif, reported that he was being threatened by the Israeli regime. He was receiving regular threats. Journalist Yasra Al-Aklook said his wife reported that the last threat he received from the Israeli Defence Forces stated: “We will break your back with your wife and children, Anas. We know their location and will kill them.” The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for Al-Sharif’s protection in a statement in July when he said his life was in danger and Israel had started in a smear campaign saying he was a “terrorist”.

“All of this is happening because my coverage of the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip harms them and damages their image in the world. This feeling is difficult and painful, but it does not push me back. Rather, it motivates me to continue fulfilling my duty and conveying the suffering of our people, even if it costs me my life.”

Al-Sharif was killed on August 10 with five other journalists when their media tent was bombed. The attack wiped out the entire Al-Jazeera Arabic news crew.

He too left a note, a will and last testament stating clearly, “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.”. He names his murderers.

After his death, videos surfaced of Al-Sharif as an 11-year old during the 2008 war on Gaza, where he was interviewed by Al Jazeera and said that he dreamt of being a reporter.

Mother and journalist, Mariam Abu Daqqa who was killed at the Nasser Hospital strikes, left behind a heartbreaking goodbye letter to her only son, whom she had been apart from for two years, “And when the time comes, when you marry and have a daughter, please name her Mariam, after me … You are my love, my strength, my pride, and my joy. Always carry yourself with dignity, and let your actions honor my memory.”

Abu Daqqa’s last instagram story just before her death was a video she took of herself in an elevator, staring blankly into the camera, looking weak and emaciated; a haunting image almost as if she could foretell what was coming. Later a haunting photograph emerged of a man in a Press vest, holding her blood-stained Canon camera.

Amr Tabash, the colleague of Reuters photojournalist Hossam-Al Masri who was killed in the same attack, wrote this on Facebook, “Fellow journalist martyred Hossam El-Masri never left the field even though he carried in his heart a bigger worry than he could bear; his wife who was suffering with cancer, who was in pain every minute before his eyes, and he was unable to save her. Just days ago, he asked me with a broken voice: ‘Can you help me evacuate my wife? The disease has worn her out and I can’t bear to see her tortured any more … ‘.”

Hossam knocked on all the doors, but he couldn’t find anyone to hear his voice. Hossam died, and his wife remained fighting the disease alone.

Mohammad Salama, 24, who was due to be married, was another journalist killed in the hospital strike. A post he shared on World Press Freedom Day reads, “Here journalism is not a profession – it is pain. We write amidst death, documenting the suffering so it is not forgotten … In every word, there is a fading soul, and there is a truth that we refuse to let die.”

In a piece by Gaza-based writer Eman Hillis says, “After seeing this deadly cycle repeat over and over again, Palestinians have come to believe that a reporting career is a death sentence for the journalists themselves and for their families.”

Later she says, “We do not need more eulogies; we need justice.”

The deliberate targeting and killing of journalists in Palestine did not begin with the events of 7 October. There was the death of Shireen Abu Akleh on 11 May 2022, and many others even before that. A deeper investigation shows recurring targeted airstrikes, bombs, sniper attacks, shooting and car missile strikes over the past few decades. For instance, in 2002, Anthony Shadid was shot by an Israeli sniper while reporting for the Boston Globe. In 2018, Yaser Murtaja, shot in the stomach, was accused of working for Hamas, despite no evidence ever being given. This pattern of silencing journalists stretches back to 1967.

The difference is major in how Israel murdered journalists then versus now. Previously they denied their attacks, hid behind excuses or were vague. Now, they strike while people are watching or broadcasting live on air. Unashamedly now they claim responsibility. Now, there is no fear.

There is an arrogance in knowing there are zero repercussions for these actions. There is hopelessness in knowing these numbers will grow. Israel is allowed to kill journalists with impunity and the message is clearly – no one is safe.

In Apocalypse Now, the 1979 film directed by Francis Ford Coppolar, creates the story in Vietnam, bringing to life the moral degradation with scenes of savagery, human-worship and one of the most realistic cinematic representations of pure madness captured on screen. When Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness story in 1898, King Leopold II of Belgium had not even yet carried out his worst atrocities on the Congolese when the heads of men were cut off and hung on village palisades; women and children’s bodies were assembled in the form of a cross and limbs were cut off for not producing enough rubber.

The horror continues, this time through TikTok and Instagram reels broadcast on tiny phone screens. We are now in a battle between good and evil – and only history will decide which direction this goes in. But some things are certain;  as journalists we will continue to tell the truth for every single person who has risked their lives in doing so.

In the last words of Anas Al-Aharif, “I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.”

Atiyyah Khan is a journalist, activist, cultural worker and archivist. For the past 17 years, she has documented the arts in South Africa. Common themes in her work focus on topics such as spatial injustice, untold stories of apartheid, jazz history and underground art movements. This article first appeared in  ALL EYES ON GAZA | herri 11