Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza loses his entire family in Israeli attack

Al Jazeera’s chief correspondent in Gaza Strip, Wael Al-Dahdouh was helping to broadcast live footage of the night sky over the besieged territory on Wednesday when he received the devastating news: his wife, son and daughter had been killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Moments later, the satellite-based channel Qatar changed to images of Dahdouh entering the al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza before giving in to sadness as he looked at the body of his dead son.

LOOK: The chaotic situation of hospitals in Gaza: 12 have closed and the rest only serve emergencies

“Do they take revenge on us on our children?” He said, kneeling over the smaller boy’s bloodied body. The journalist was still wearing his press protection vest.

Dahdouh’s grandson was also pronounced dead two hours laterreported the network.

The video will certainly resonate throughout the Arab world, where the 53-year-old journalist is known as the face of Palestinians during many wars. He is revered in his Link native for telling stories of people’s suffering and difficulties to the outside world.

Al-Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh mourns over the body of one of his two sons who were killed along with his wife and grandson in an Israeli attack on the Nuseirat camp. (Photo by Majdi FATHI/AFP). (MAJDI FATHI/)

According to Al JazeeraDahdouh’s relatives killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit the Nuseirat refugee camplocated in an area of Link where the army encouraged people to go to stay safe. I say that several other family members remained missing and it was unclear how many more died.

The family of Dahdouh was among the more than one million residents of Link displaced by the war, which had already lasted 19 days, and They were staying in a house in Nuseirat when the attack occurredsaid the network.

Israeli attacks killed more than 7,000 Palestinianssays the Gaza Ministry of Health. The Associated Press was unable to independently verify the death toll.

Hamas attacks killed more than 1,400 people in Israelmost civilians killed during the initial Oct. 7 attack, according to the Israeli government.

On Wednesday night, Al Jazeera He replayed the moment when Dahdouh was informed about the deaths. In an audio recording, he is heard picking up a phone and repeatedly saying to a frantic caller: “Who are you with?”

Earlier, Dahdouh was on air covering the aftermath of another attack that killed at least 26 people according to local authorities. Throughout the war, Dahdouh remained in Gaza City despite Israeli calls for residents to head south ahead of an expected ground offensive.

Hundreds of thousands of people fled to Nuseirat and other locations in central and southern Gaza, believing they were safer. But Israeli attacks continued to target these areas, which suffered from severe shortages of water, medicine and fuel during the Israeli siege.

“This is the safe zone that the occupation army spoke of, the moral army,” Dahdouh said. with bitter sarcasm to a fellow reporter Al Jazeera at Al Aqsa hospital.

In a statement, Al Jazeera said the Dahdouh family home “was the target” of an “indiscriminate attack by the Israeli occupation”.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment. Says it attacks only Hamas military targets, but Palestinians say thousands of civilians have been killed. Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields.

Israel threatened to shut down Al Jazeera over its coverage of the war. Al Jazeera is a Qatari state media network and is deeply critical of Israelparticularly with its treatment of Palestinians.

Over the past week, gas-rich Qatar has become a key intermediary in the fate of more than 200 hostages captured by militants. Hamas during the October 7 attack. Qatar has hosted Hamas’ political office in its capital, Doha, for more than a decade. The capital, Doha, is the home of Ismail Haniyeh, the supreme leader of Hamas, and also Khaled Mashaal, Haniyeh’s predecessor.

Four of the hostages were released, a mother and her daughter on Friday and two more on Monday. In an interview with Sky News this week, Mashaal said that all Israeli hostages could be released if Israel stopped its aerial bombardment Link.

Source: Elcomercio