Al Jazeera English correspondent, Youmna Al-Sayed, described the terrifying scenes she experienced in… Gaza While she was standing in front of the camera lenses on a live broadcast from there last week, when Israeli warplanes were flying overhead, before striking the residential neighborhoods below.
The war zone was not far from her home, but her battles were revolving around it, and she said in her live broadcast, “Our building is shaking,” while the channel was showing a scene from the roof of a house from which columns of black smoke were emitting.
With this narration from the Al Jazeera English correspondent, the Washington Post began its report in which it recounted stories and events of the suffering of journalists in Gaza who were immersed in covering the battles.
A journalist is killed daily
The Washington Post says that for weeks, hundreds of local journalists in the Gaza Strip have been conveying to the world personal accounts of the devastation that affected the lives of citizens and their homes in the Gaza Strip.
At the same time, they were trying to find ways to save themselves and their families, comforting and comforting children, searching for food and water, and racing between hospitals and destroyed buildings, hoping that no friends or relatives would be there.
The American newspaper adds that at least one Palestinian journalist is killed every day in the Gaza war, which is an “astonishing” rate. According to various estimates, between 34 and 50 journalists were killed, with the toll amounting to approximately 4% of media workers in Gaza, as confirmed by journalists’ advocacy groups.
Last October was the bloodiest for journalists in more than three decades, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, based in New York City.
The death toll included 4 Israeli journalists who were killed in a Hamas attack on October 7, in addition to a Lebanese journalist who worked for Reuters called Issam Abdullah, who was martyred in a missile attack in southern Lebanon.
Siege of media professionals
The Washington Post notes in its report that a number of international journalists were unable to enter Gaza after they were prevented by Egypt and Israel, which control the borders.
The newspaper believes that the media’s open appetite for news, the worsening humanitarian catastrophe, and the high number of civilian deaths are all factors that have increased pressure on local reporters trying to cover the facts of this war.
Some Palestinian journalists were far from their homes reporting on the war when raids killed their families, and their grieving trips to hospitals to see the bodies of their loved ones were broadcast live on television.
It should be noted here that a number of family members of Al Jazeera’s colleague in Gaza Wael Al-Dahdouh – Including his wife, son and daughter – they were martyred on October 25 in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house to which they were displaced in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The newspaper’s report specifically mentioned the incident of the martyrdom of journalist Muhammad Abu Hatab, his wife, two of his sons, and 4 of his daughters in an Israeli raid. His colleague, Palestine TV correspondent Salman Bashir, heard about his martyrdom while he was broadcast live.
Afraid of obituary message
Journalist Bashir said in an interview, “I felt that the shield I was wearing, which clearly bore the press badge, did not protect me.”
Some journalists in Gaza complain about outdated equipment, such as flak jackets that lack armor plates.
Among the journalists who were martyred in Gaza was Rushdi Al-Sarraj, a journalist, film director, and one of the founders of Ain Media, and his colleague in the same company, Yasser Murtaja.
The Washington Post goes back to quoting Al Jazeera English’s correspondent in Gaza as saying – while talking about her shock at the reports coming from hospitals – that the images of the bodies she saw “haunt me at night, when I eat my food, and whenever I want to sit down and rest.”
Iranian Al-Alam TV correspondent, Israa Al-Buhaisi, says that she was examining the faces of the children who were being transported in the ambulances, to verify whether any of her children were among them.
“We are afraid of the (phone) ringtone or a voice message. We are afraid of everything. We die alive and envy the dead.” With these expressive words from Al-Buhaisi, the American newspaper concluded its report.
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