Wael
al-Dahdouh was live on air when he realised something was wrong. It was
25 October 2023, about 5pm, and Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza was
standing on the roof of the channel’s office building, speaking about
the day’s airstrikes. “It’s going to be a bloody night,” said Dahdouh,
his voice playing over live images of the skyline, as explosions flared
on the horizon.Out of the corner of his eye,
Dahdouh noticed his nephew Hamdan, a producer with Al Jazeera, looking
agitated. Then Dahdouh’s mobile phone, slotted in his flak jacket, began
to ring. Hamdan reached over, pulled the phone out and answered it. It
was an odd thing to do while they were on air, Dahdouh thought. Alarmed,
he addressed Hamdan. “Who is it?” Dahdouh asked, still audible to
viewers. After a few seconds on the phone, Hamdan angrily kicked a wall.
“What’s going on?” Dahdouh asked. Hamdan replied: “Your daughter. The
girl is in the hospital. They have struck the place where your wife and
family are.” Dahdouh took the phone. As viewers continued to see live
scenes from Gaza,
they could hear Dahdouh’s rising alarm and Hamdan’s flustered
interjections in the background. Then the transmission cut to the studio
in Doha.
On
the phone was Dahdouh’s 21-year-old daughter, Khulood, who was
bewildered and unable to give him a clear idea of what was happening. He
hung up and rushed to Nuseirat camp seven miles away, where his wife
and seven of his eight children had been sheltering in an
Israeli-designated safe zone. When he arrived about 40 minutes later,
Dahdouh found a chaotic scene. People were digging in the rubble with
their hands, using their mobile phone torches to see. Some were in
tears, others wailing the names of the dead. In the debris, Dahdouh
found his 18-month-old grandson, Adam, covered in dust, unconscious.
Cradling the boy in his arms, Dahdouh raced to al-Aqsa martyrs hospital
15 minutes away.
In
the melee outside the hospital, Dahdouh found Khulood. When she saw
Adam’s body in her father’s arms, she began screaming and stroking her
nephew’s face. Then she collapsed, taking Dahdouh down with her, still
clutching the toddler. Dahdouh staggered to his feet. Inside the
building, he handed Adam to a doctor and began to search for the rest of
his family, lurching through the throngs also looking for their loved
ones, through corridors full of the wounded. Dahdouh’s reporting had
made him famous in Gaza, and as he continued his search, asking if
anyone had seen his wife and children, he started to realise that people
were avoiding him, as if they knew something he didn’t. Then an
ambulance brought in his youngest son, 12-year-old Yahya. His skull was
exposed and his head drenched in blood, but he was conscious. Dahdouh
rushed him to a doctor who began to sew up his wounds on the spot. There
was no anaesthetic. Yahya screamed in pain... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/31/wael-al-dahdouh-gaza-palestinian-journalist-tragedy
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