Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh is in Qatar for medical treatment after being wounded in an Israeli attack while reporting on the conflict.
Dahdouh – who has been the face of Al Jazeera Arabic’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza – arrived in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Tuesday night, via Egypt.
He was wounded in an Israeli drone strike in December in which Al Jazeera Arabic’s cameraperson Samer Abudaqa was killed while they were reporting in southern Gaza.
Just now, we welcomed our esteemed colleague, Wael Al Dahdooh, to Doha as he arrives to receive medical treatment. Wael's unwavering dedication during his coverage in Gaza, where he tragically lost his family, is a testament to his resilience and commitment. We stand united in… pic.twitter.com/kUly4M8d9J
— Mohamed Moawad (@moawady) January 16, 2024
Dahdouh, who left the besieged enclave for the first time since the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict started in October, lost his wife Amna, son Mahmoud, daughter Sham and grandson Adam in October after an Israeli air raid hit the home they were sheltering in at the Nuseirat refugee camp, after being displaced from their house in Gaza City.
Earlier this month, the 53-year-old veteran journalist’s eldest son, Hamza, also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed by an Israeli missile strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
Despite his immense personal loss, Dahdouh has comforted his family, friends and colleagues and continued to turn to the cameras to report with steadfastness about the catastrophic situation in Gaza.
“The cost is very high, but at the end of the day, we ask ourselves, ‘What is the other option?’,” he told US broadcaster NBC in an interview on Sunday.
“We sit in our homes, waiting for missiles to land. Leave this job, give up this humanitarian message that we delivered? This is definitely not an option,” Dahdouh said.
As he laid Hamza to rest, he noted that he was one of many in Gaza bidding farewells to their loved ones and pledged to remain on his path of showing the world what is happening in Gaza.
The Al Jazeera Media Network strongly condemned the attack that killed Hamza, as well as Mustafa Thuraya, another of the network’s journalists. The list of Al Jazeera journalists and staff who have died or lost members of their families has been growing.
Nearly 100 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October. Data from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) shows that more journalists were killed in the first 10 weeks of the conflict than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year.
