The Inspirational Story of Wael Al-Dahdouh: A Palestinian Journalist’s Courage and Resilience

2024-01-18 17:09:35
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A young Palestinian man takes a photo with Wael Al-Dahdouh while covering events in Rafah

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Pictures of the director of Al Jazeera’s office in Gaza, Wael Al-Dahdouh, were spread on the X platform (formerly Twitter), receiving treatment at Hamad Medical City in Doha.

The channel said that Al-Dahdouh began his medical journey, following the injury he suffered in mid-December, while covering the Israeli bombing on the Farhana School in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, which resulted in the death of his colleague, the photographer Samer Abu Daqqa.

During the past two days, platform users followed news of Al-Dahdouh’s arrival in Doha, on board a Qatari evacuation plane that he took from Al-Arish in Egypt, following leaving the Rafah border crossing.

Al-Dahdouh’s journey from Gaza, through Egypt, to Qatar received great attention, and his name topped the most popular terms on Internet search engines and across social media platforms in a number of Arab countries.

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The fifty-year-old journalist’s experience during the past months, with his coverage of the Gaza war, turned him into an “icon” of patience and steadfastness, as many wrote on social media, where he became nicknamed “Mount Gaza.”

The cost of the war on the journalistic body in Gaza was very high, as regarding 119 journalists were killed, according to figures issued by the government media office in Gaza.

International bodies concerned with the rights of journalists sounded the alarm over the high number of casualties among journalists killed during the Israeli bombing, while the Israeli side said that its army does not intentionally target journalists.

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Among the journalists who were killed was Hamza bin Wael Al-Dahdouh (27 years old), who was killed along with his colleague, photographer Mustafa Thuraya (29 years old), on January 7 “as a result of a missile from an Israeli drone that targeted the car they were traveling in near the Al-Mawasi area, southwest of Gaza Strip,” according to Al Jazeera’s website.

Mustafa and Hamza were on a mission to cover news of the displaced for Al Jazeera.

The Israeli army said in its comment on the strike that it targeted “a terrorist who was operating a position that posed a threat to the operations” of its members.

The families of Soraya and Al-Dahdouh rejected these allegations, and said that describing the journalists as terrorists was “fabricated” and “false.”

US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said that he felt “deep regret” over the killing of Hamza, during a joint press conference with his Qatari counterpart, Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, in Doha, the day following the killing of the young journalist.

Blinken said: “I am very, very sorry for the unimaginable loss that your colleague Wael Al Dahdouh has suffered. I am a father too, and I cannot imagine the horror he went through not once, but twice.”

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The killing of Hamza was the last link in a series of tragedies that struck the Dahdouh family, since the beginning of the war, and Wael was continuing his work in coverage despite this, which made him a symbol, to the point that some described him as “the Job of this era.”

During his work and following a direct message regarding the developments of the war last October 25, Wael received news that a house where his family had taken refuge with a second family had been targeted, in the Nuseirat camp, south of the Gaza Strip.

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The Israeli bombing that day led to the death of more than 12 people, including Al-Dahdouh’s wife, Amna, his son Mahmoud (16 years old), his daughter Sham (6 years old), and his infant grandson Adam.

Al-Dahdouh also lost his colleague, Samer Abu Daqqa, in the raid that targeted the team on December 15, while covering an air strike that targeted a school in Khan Yunis. Wael was injured in the same raid.

With the killing of more than 24,000 Palestinians – most of them civilians – since Israel began its operation in Gaza following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, Wael Al-Dahdouh’s photos, recordings, and coverage have become an intensification of the tragedies of many of his neighbors and family in the Gaza Strip, who lost their families and were displaced. From their homes.

This is not the first war that Wael Al Dahdouh has covered. Since joining Al Jazeera in 2004, twenty years ago, he has covered many events, and during his work he witnessed the killing of a number of his family members.

In a report summarizing his career broadcast by Al Jazeera, he talked regarding the killing of more than 20 of his relatives, including his brothers and cousins, in Israeli raids over the years.

He said: “This is one of the difficult moments in the life of a Palestinian journalist when he goes to report the event and the picture. In a certain event, he discovers that the event is his brother or cousin.”

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During the funeral of photographer Samer Abu Daqqa

In a recording, Al-Dahdouh talks regarding how he is often forced to give priority to his work, at the expense of his family, and how during the Gaza War in 2021 he was forced to distribute his children among several of his relatives’ homes.

He said: “The moment they need you the most, they need you the most. The strength of the father. The symbolism of the father. The role of the father is missing in our families – we are journalists – and this is perhaps the painful feature, as I said. When they need you, they miss you. This is very painful.”

In the video “Behind the Camera is a Human Being,” his late wife, Amna, talks regarding the difficulties of her husband’s work, and says: “The worst thing regarding journalistic work is that there are no appointments, no life, and no social events.” He jokes with her, saying: “Do you want me to leave work?”

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During his work as Al Jazeera’s bureau chief and correspondent in Gaza, Al Dahdouh also covered the targeting of a tower that housed the channel’s office and a number of other media outlets, during a direct message.

He says in a report to Al Jazeera: “The tower collapsed and many memories were destroyed, but the will and determination remained steadfast and the image and sound remained loud.”

Al-Dahdouh, born in 1970, wanted in his youth to become a doctor, and won a scholarship to study medicine in Iraq, but he was arrested in 1988, following his participation in the first Palestinian intifada, and remained in Israeli prisons for seven years.

After his release from prison, he studied journalism and media at the Islamic University in Gaza, and began in the field of print journalism, in Al-Quds newspaper, where he covered the second intifada, but his most important breakthrough was when he joined Al-Jazeera.

Away from the field of journalism, and before the last war, Al-Dahdouh, who was born to a family of farmers, used to work on his land and take care of vegetables and trees every day before going to work in the field.

As he continued to cover despite the personal losses he suffered, people who met him during his coverage of events in Gaza began taking pictures with him, especially children and youth.

In a film entitled “Behind the Camera is a Human Being,” produced in 2016, he talked regarding people in Gaza carrying him on their shoulders, during one of the coverages.

He said: “I found that this was the greatest award I might receive, because people found that you were the only one when all the people abandoned this people, and you were perhaps the only one who felt that you were defending them, even with pictures, words, and information.”

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