Hamza, 27, was at the Al Jazeera news network, where his father is the Gaza bureau chief, when a strike “targeted” his car near the southern city of Rafah, the network said.
Another journalist, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured, according to Al Jazeera. The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to requests for comment on the strike, or its intended purpose.
In a brutal war in Gaza that has killed nearly 23,000 people, including scores of journalists, Wael al-Dahdouh, 53, has become a symbol, his tenacity a rare source of hope for Palestinians who feel it echoes their own tragedy.
In October, when the death toll in Gaza reached 7,000, Wael gasped when he learned that his wife, two children and an infant grandchild had been killed in an Israeli attack. In December, as the toll approached 19,000, an Israeli drone strike injured Wael and killed his cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa, Khan Younis reported.
On both occasions, it was back on the air the next day.
In a video posted on social media, Wael appears at Hamza’s wedding in 2022, all smiles and arms outstretched, as guests toss him, the groom’s father, up and then catch him again.
On Sunday, she looked empty as she stood over Hamza’s body at the mortuary, holding her hand and muttering softly. Later, he wrapped his arms around Wafaa, his son’s inconsolable widow, as she laid her face on Hamza’s chest.
Each time the pain got “harder and worse,” Wael told Al Jazeera on Sunday. “I wish my son Hamza’s blood would be the last of the journalists and the last of the people of Gaza and stop this carnage.”
On Sunday in Doha, Qatar, Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the killings as an “unimaginable tragedy” and said that as a parent “one cannot begin to imagine the horror that Wael has gone through”, “not once, but now. twice”.
The Biden administration says it has asked Israel to do more to limit civilian casualties in Gaza, but US weapons have played a central role in the military campaign, and the US has vetoed successive UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire.
Hamza’s last message to X, previously from Twitter, was a message to his father. “Don’t give up,” he wrote, alongside a picture of Wael reporting from an explosion site in his navy and white jacket, marked “PRESS”.
At least 79 journalists and media workers have been killed since the October 7 attack Hama In southern Israel, according to Committee to Protect Journalists. About 1,200 people died in that initial attack.
The punitive war launched by Israel in response, aimed at removing Hamas from power, has killed 22,835, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The campaign has also collapsed much of the health system, leaving the besieged Palestinian enclave on the verge of starvation, according to the United Nations.
The London-based charity Save the Children said on Sunday that more than 10 Palestinian children a day, on average, have lost one or two legs since the Gaza conflict began.
Also trapped there are more than 120 Israeli and foreign hostages, kidnapped in the October 7 attack. Many of them are believed to be in poor health and living on limited rations. Their friends and family gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday, calling on the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring them home.
“I want him to come back alive, not in a coffin,” said 18-year-old Ofir Engel, himself a captive until recently. in a video broadcast to the public. Hamas released 110 hostages in late November as part of a deal with Israel that halted fighting for a week.
The Committee to Protect Journalists called for an independent investigation into the deaths of Hamza and Thuraya on Sunday to determine whether they were targeted. Agence-France Presse, a global news agency, said Thuraya, a freelance journalist, had also worked at the outlet since 2019.
“We strongly condemn any attack on journalists doing their job and it is imperative that we have a clear explanation of what happened,” said global news director Phil Chetwynd.
In photos and videos shared online after the strike, the car Hamza and Thuraya were riding in was damaged: the roof blown off, the frame twisted on the road and the two front seats charred black. In one video, a man in the crowd gathered around the vehicle placed a blanket over a backseat passenger, someone who appeared to be injured.
During the three-month war, hundreds of Palestinian journalists in Gaza have given the world intimate views of the devastation the conflict has wreaked on people’s lives, while trying to survive themselves and protect their families.
They soothe and comfort children, search for food and water, and race between hospitals and destroyed buildings to report on the dead and wounded, hoping no friends or family will be there when they arrive.
“The Al Dahdouh family and their fellow journalists in Gaza are rewriting what it means to be a journalist today with incredibly brave and unprecedented sacrifices,” said Sherif Mansour, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists. .
In an interview with Al Jazeera English on Sunday, where much of the extensive coverage has been devoted to the killings of journalists, Antoine Bernard, director of advocacy and support for Reporters Without Borders, said the organization has “reasons” to believe. journalists killed in Gaza since the start of the war were targeted.
“We claim that at least war crimes have been committed against journalists,” he said.
An investigation by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International concluded that IDF forces targeted a group of Lebanese, American, and Iraqi journalists in southern Lebanon on October 13. The Israeli army has denied targeting journalists, insisting it only targets militants.
“Israel says it does not target journalists. He must explain whether he used one of his drones to carry out a precision attack against these two journalists and why he launched strikes against Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah, who was clearly wearing press insignia and far from direct combat,” Mansour said.
In interviews on Sunday, Hamza and Thuraya’s journalist colleagues appeared lost. Hind al-Khoudary, 28, spoke through tears as she recalled Hamza telling her to move closer to where he was staying, which she believed was safer than where she was in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah.
When he posted a video on social media showing a woman baking cinnamon buns, Hamza joked that he wanted some himself.
Believing there is safety in numbers, many Gazan journalists stay in tents and travel together. Adil Abu Taha, a 33-year-old freelance cameraman for Al-Kufiya TV, said he had dinner with Hamza on Saturday night and that they talked about little other than work. The dinner, he said, was “simple” but “full of warmth”.
Bashar Talib, 34, said the couple shared breakfast on Sunday morning and decided to meet again later that day.
“As a journalist, I feel a lot of fear. I’m not the only one,” Talib said. He added that some residents he interviewed recently were also wary of his presence, “fearing that one of us would be targeted while we were with them.”
In a Facebook post, China Media Group correspondent Anas al-Najjar wrote that he would not report on this war.
“Seeking safety with family is a thousand times better than searching for news to convey to a world that doesn’t know the meaning of empathy,” he wrote. “May God have mercy on fellow journalists.”
Harb and Hassan reported from London, and Mahfouz from Cairo. John Hudson in Doha, Niha Masih in Seoul, Kareem Fahim in Istanbul, Hazem Balousha in Amman and Erin Cunningham in Washington contributed to this report.
