Journalists work in severe circumstances to tell the story of Gazas, knowing that it can make their targets

Beirut (AP) – minutes after journalists gathered outside a Gaza hospital to investigate the damage of an Israeli strike, Ibrahim Qannan pointed his camera to the battered building while the other climbed his external stairs. Then Qannan looked into horror – while broadcasting directly – while a second strike killed the friends and colleagues he knew so well. “We live side by side with death,” Qannan, a correspondent of Cairo-based Al-Gad TV, said in an interview. “I still can’t believe that five of our colleagues were hit on the camera in front of me, and I try to hold and look strong to carry the message. Maybe no one feels such feelings. These are painful feelings. ‘ The death of the five journalists in the August 25 strikes at Nasser Hospital contributes to a toll on almost 200 news workers who died by Israeli forces while working to bring Gaza’s story to the world. Those who died in the attack, who left a total of 22 people, have Mariam Dagga, 33, a visual journalist who included freelance for the Associated Press and other outlets. Like the vast majority of Gaza’s population, most of his journalists destroyed or damaged their homes during the war and was repeatedly displaced after the evacuation orders by Israel’s military. Many people mourned the death of family members. But journalists and advocates say the trials go much further. According to them, every working day is shaded by an awareness that the cover of the news in Gaza makes them simple in the conflict, which puts it extraordinary risk. For journalists in Gaza, “It’s about dying or living, to escape violence or not. It’s something we can’t compare at any level,” said Mohamed Salama, a former Egypt reporter who is now an academic and explores the life of news workers in the strip. After the strikes in August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that the military does not deliberately target journalists and the murders call a ‘tragic accident’. After a preliminary review, the military said the attack targeted what he believed was a Hamas supervision camera and that six of the people who died were militants but did not provide any evidence. Late last month, the AP and Reuters – who lost a cameraman and a freelance in the attack on the hospital – demanded that Israel give a full account of what happened and “take every step to protect those who continue to cover this conflict.” The news organizations issued their statement about the one-month anniversary of the strikes. Israeli officials have previously accused some journalists in Gaza of being current or former militants. This includes Anas Al-Sharif, a well-known correspondent for Al Jazeera who died in an early August strike on a media tent outside another Gaza Hospital. Four other journalists were also killed in the attack. The Israeli army, referring to documents that allegedly found it in Gaza as well as other intelligence, has long claimed that Al-Sharif was a member of Hamas. He was killed after the press lawyers said that an Israeli “smear campaign” acted when Al-Sharif cried on the air about hunger in the area. There is a long, sometimes tragic history of journalists who dare personal safety to cover conflict. But the risks, trials and tolls of them have never been higher than in Gaza, experts say. As the war was set fire to Israel almost two years ago by the Hamas attack, 195 Palestinian media newspapers were killed by the Israeli forces in Gaza, according to the committee to protect journalists. The toll recently asked the Brown University’s cost of war project to call Gaza a ‘News Graveyard’. The deaths of the Gaza journalist now have the combined number that surpassed the war in Yugoslaia during the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Vietnam and Korean wars, and the war in Afghanistan. In a separate recording of Gaza News Workers last year by Arabic reporters for investigative journalism, nine out of ten said their homes were destroyed in the war. About one in five said they were injured and that approximately the same number had lost family members. This was before Israel fought again in March after a short ceasefire. One Gaza journalist, Nour Swirki, told the AP in an interview that she was destroyed since her home early in the war, she was displaced seven times. Swirki and her husband, who is also a journalist, arranged for their son and daughter to leave Gaza in 2024 and stay with the family in Egypt while the couple kept working. “I preferred their safety over my motherhood,” says Swirki, who works for the Saudi-based Asharq News and was a friend of marijuana. “Death is there (in Gaza) every moment, every second and everywhere,” Swirki said. She is reminded of reality when she meets through the faces and voices by the faces and voices killed by the faces and voices of the faces and voices of the faces and friends. “We get scared and terrified and we work under the most difficult circumstances,” she said, “but we still get up and work.” Qannan, who killed his colleagues in the August strike, said that Israel’s refusal to enter foreign reporters put tremendous pressure on local journalists, many of whom consider their work as a duty to their fellow Palestinians. He said that since the beginning of the war he has worked without a break and sleeps between direct broadcasts. His family was displaced seven times. Now he and other journalists are struggling to find food. In a recent social media post, he and fellow journalists gathered to cook a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of pasta that cost them the $ 60 equivalent. But when he went on camera, Qannan said he made an effort to look strong in the hope of reassure viewers. In fact, he and other journalists are exhausted and scared, he said. Qannan says his fears have increased since he killed a video of his colleagues in the hospital attack because it could draw the attention of the Israeli army. “The situation is more scary than the human brain can think,” he said. “The fear that we live and fear of being targeted is worse than described.” Another journalist in Gaza, Mohammed Subeh, said the Israeli strike that killed Al Jazeera’s reporter earlier in August left him with a shrapnel in his back and an injury to his foot. But hospitals are so overwhelmed with critical cases that he could not receive treatment. “A journalist in Gaza lives between the war on the ground, after the news and at the same time trying to care for his safety and the safety of his family,” says Subeh, who reports for Al-Ikhbariya, a Saudi Arabian news channel. Salama, who, along with colleagues, had an interview with more than 20 Gaza journalists for their academic research, said that unlike foreign correspondents covering a war, the Palestinian reporters experienced decades of conflict. That experience makes them uniquely able to tell Gaza’s story, he said – but they can never step away from it. “You don’t have the luxury of breaking your soul away from what’s happening on the ground,” says Salama, now a doctoral student at the University of Maryland. South, who works for the Saudi news channel, said he repeatedly thought to stop and try to flee. But despite the extreme problems and dangers, he cannot lead himself to it. “I feel that my presence is important here and that the voice of Gaza should be sent from its own residents to the world,” he said. “Journalism is not just a job for me, but a mission.” ___ mrroue report of Beirut and Geller of New York.