The journalists killed in Gaza — and what they tried to show the world

Ayat Khadoura, 27

Freelance reporter

Killed on Nov. 20

Ayat Khadoura posted a video online in November. The text written across her recording reads: “My last message to the world.” For the freelancer, posting from northern Gaza about the search for food and basic needs, it wasn’t the first time she’d thought she might be filming her final moments. But this time she was right.

“We had very big dreams, but unfortunately, today our dreams are that if we are killed, we are killed in one piece,” she said.

An Israeli strike hit Khadoura’s home in northern Gaza, killing her and some of her siblings, her sister Yasmin said. She said relatives couldn’t bury Ayat because her body was blown to pieces.

“Ayat aspired to become a big journalist, to study further, to get filming equipment. So many things,” her sister said. But in her last days, Yasmin recalled, “she told me, ‘I no longer want anything. I just want the war to end.’”

Samer Abu Daqqa, 45

Al Jazeera cameraman

Killed on Dec. 15

Samer Abu Daqqa bled for hours before ambulances could reach him. He was dead by the time rescuers arrived. The Al Jazeera cameraman had gone to report on a school in Khan Younis sheltering displaced Palestinians when he was hit by an Israeli drone strike, his network said. Colleagues remembered the father of four as a veteran cameraman committed to telling the story of Gaza, and a man who loved to smile.

The night before his death, he filmed a live broadcast outside a hospital in Khan Younis with Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief. Dahdouh, injured in the strike that killed Abu Daqqa, has since evacuated to Qatar.

Dahdouh had become the stoic face of the network’s wartime coverage, going on air even after an Israeli strike killed his wife and two of his children. Another strike killed his son Hamza, who also worked for Al Jazeera. Israel accused Hamza, and a freelancer killed alongside him, of being members of militant groups — a claim the network strongly denies.

Montaser al-Sawaf, 33

Photojournalist and freelance cameraman for Anadolu Agency

Killed on Dec. 1

Montaser al-Sawaf went around on his bicycle photographing the ruins of Gaza’s buildings, his colleagues remembered. “Yesterday, there was a street here, homes, children, and dreams,” he wrote under one photo.

Among his last Instagram posts was a selfie showing his injured eye after he survived a bombardment that killed his parents and other family members. Days later, Anadolu reported that Israeli strikes had killed Sawaf and a brother in Gaza City. “He didn’t give up until his last moment,” recalled Turgut Alp Boyraz, the agency’s regional news manager. “He said, ‘Somebody has to do the job.’”

Belal Jadallah, 45

Director of Press House — Palestine

Killed on Nov. 19

Belal Jadallah was often called the “father figure” of journalism in Gaza. He founded Press House, a media center that grew into a community, especially for budding journalists. It offered training courses, started a news agency and provided press vests and helmets. “Belal devoted his life to building an independent media landscape,” said founding member and friend Hikmat Yousef.

In a Facebook post before his death, Jadallah paid tribute to a slain colleague at Press House: “Words cannot express my sadness for this painful loss,” he wrote.

Jadallah was planning to evacuate south, Yousef said, when he was killed in his car by Israeli shelling in Gaza City.

Mosab Ashour, 22

Freelance videographer

Killed on Oct. 22

It was Mosab Ashour’s last year in college. The media student was freelancing in video and media production as he worked to make a name for himself in the industry.

In one of his last videos, captioned “Words from Gaza,” he asked, “Who is listening?”

Before the war, his posts had shown him filming, traveling and singing. In his last phone call with an uncle, Ashour said he wanted to leave Gaza. Not long after, he was killed in an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp, his uncle said.

“I follow my dream,” Ashour had posted a few weeks earlier, when he turned 22.

Majd Arandas, 29

Photographer

Killed on Nov. 1

Majd Arandas wanted to document Palestinians living. A photo series he did before the war focused on his grandmother. He photographed people eating or children playing despite Israeli bombardment and siege, said Mohamed Somji, director of the Gulf Photo Plus photography center, who recalled Arandas saying, “These are the photos I want people to remember.” The images resonated, Somji thinks, because “there’s a form of resistance that comes through sharing moments of joy.”

An Israeli strike killed Arandas near his home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, friends said. In a voice message he had recently sent to Somji, he described wanting to travel and show Gazans a world “they’re prevented from seeing.”

Roshdi Sarraj, 31

Filmmaker and co-founder of Ain Media

Killed on Oct. 22

Roshdi Sarraj appealed for the safety of Gaza’s journalists days before he was killed. He was mourning after the killing of a colleague at Ain Media, the company he co-founded. “We need international protection,” he said in a voice message to The Post in October.

Family members and colleagues said an Israeli strike killed Sarraj at his parents’ home. Alice Froussard, a French journalist who worked with Sarraj, said he covered war and “experienced it at the same time, always with the nightmarish thought of having to recount the death of a friend.”