Gaza Journalist Diaries| Among basil and mint, I sat and wept for my fellow journalists

On the evening of Monday, Aug. 25, I sat among the basil and mint in our small garden. I had turned off the lights and began scrolling through the news on my phone. Under the moonlight I watched the images of my friends and fellow journalists we lost that same morning. Five colleagues killed in two Israeli strikes on Nasser Medical Complex. A sixth was shot while inside his tent in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

I leaned my head against the wall and questioned the meaning of being a journalist.

We had become the news, not its messengers. Would quitting save me from danger? I thought of my children who are now in Egypt. I thought of my wife Nour, who is still here. What would happen if I were injured or killed? Would I become another number in the growing toll of murdered journalists, my image shared with condolences, and my name listed in human rights reports?

With those thoughts, a sudden burst of gunfire echoed nearby. An Israeli drone or vehicle had opened fire east of Deir Al-Balah, the area where I am currently displaced.

One bullet struck the wall and landed right beside me.

Danger, just inches away

I froze. I was shocked. Or maybe I was afraid. Was I living a moment between two bullets? I picked up the round. It was still hot. I dropped it and went inside, trying to sleep to escape the thoughts. By morning, I found another bullet had shattered the rear window of my car, parked just outside.

From the very start of the genocide, I carried my camera, my protective vest, and my helmet. I left home, not planning to return until the war ended. It’s been nearly two years. I’ve moved between cities, camps, neighborhoods, and hospitals up and down the Strip alongside my fellow journalists.

We shared whatever food we could find. We worked together, debated, and wept for the friends we lost. 246 of them. Others remain missing since day one, either imprisoned or disappeared without a trace.

The war’s first victims were our friends Nidal Al-Waheidi and Haitham Abdelwahed. They went missing while covering the initial hours. We still don’t know their fate. Two days after their disappearance, three more colleagues were killed in a strike west of Gaza City on the war’s third day.

Gone without goodbye

On the war’s second day, a warning was issued for a wide residential block near our home. Though we lived just outside the designated area, I returned to sleep at home with my wife, children, extended family, and relatives who had already been displaced.

At dawn, I was monitoring the shelling west of the city when I saw my friend, photojournalist Mohamed Qandil, walking past a news camera inside Al-Shifa Hospital. I called him and joked:

“Where are you going, my friend? I see you strolling in front of the cameras.”

“They’re gone,” he replied.

“Who’s gone?”

“Hesham, Saeed, and Mohamed... they’re all gone.”

“Gone where? I don’t understand.”

“They were killed. Just moments ago. They brought them in now.”

He burst into tears. So did I. I said nothing. We were silent for minutes before ending the call. Their deaths made headlines. An Israeli airstrike had hit a home they were standing near. They wore press vests and helmets and carried their cameras. None of it saved them.

I waited for daylight while the bombing continued in our neighborhood and beyond. When I finally stepped outside, I found destruction unlike anything I’d ever seen. Dozens of buildings and homes I used to pass daily were now rubble. Even the streets had been shelled, covered in broken concrete. At Al-Shifa, I watched their funerals. I never got the chance to say goodbye.

No time to grieve

There was no time to process, no space to mourn. The airstrikes intensified. My colleagues and I moved from one site to another, documenting the devastation in homes and streets, day and night. We recorded the victims—entire families wiped from the civil registry. We filmed hospital corridors overcrowded with the wounded. We documented the mass displacement from Gaza’s north to its south. And I, too, became one of the displaced.

After those first days, I made daily visits back to Gaza City, my birthplace. But the Israeli military eventually sealed off the north. I became trapped in the south, clinging to the hope of return. I worked nonstop fearing silence would crush me. I felt like if I stopped I would fall into despair, and despair might kill me.

I wept alone for my latest fallen friends. I wept for the grieving families they left behind. We had to keep going—to keep reporting on the crimes committed against Palestinians, on how war and Israeli policies stripped them of food, water, travel, and medical care. How people died from treatable conditions, not because medicine was unavailable, but because they were denied access to it.

For the children

From day one, I chose fieldwork; not just out of duty, but to avoid my wife’s and children’s eyes. I said I needed to focus on work, but the reality is I wanted to avoid facing their fear every time a bomb fell. We met briefly, daily if we could.

After we were displaced to the south, even those brief meetings faded. Days and weeks passed without seeing them. Fuel shortages and soaring prices made travel dangerous and difficult even for us journalists. We rationed our movement, saving it for emergencies.

I will never forget the voice notes from my children on WhatsApp. They were sad, stifled. My son, Gamal, or my daughter, Alia, would ask all day long how I was doing. Later, I learned that despite their young age, they were following the war through news groups and tracking my location, to determine if I was near recent strikes. Until they left Gaza in May 2024.

Since then, we’ve only met through phone screens.

After they left, I started facing my wife, Nour. We lived together in a tent and did the field reporting together. That changed things. I began to worry more, not for myself, but for her. I worried about her assignments, her safety, and there was no way to escape the fear in her eyes.

War changes you

I think I became more cautious. More afraid. Especially as Israel intensified its targeting of journalists. Even those clearly marked as press were not spared.

Our colleagues, Maryam Abu Dagga, Mohamed Salama, Hossam Al-Masri, and Moath Abu Taha—were killed during a live broadcast at Nasser Medical Complex. Not long after, journalist and doctor Hassan Douhan was killed inside his displacement tent.

In recent weeks, we lost friends like journalist Hassan Eslayeh, with whom I spent five months in Rafah, displaced. We shared a tent, ate together, and sometimes worked together. We also lost Ahmed Saad, who stayed in Gaza City and was always a call away. He was the first person I saw when we returned in February.

Ismail Abu Hatab, another friend and long-time colleague, had planned to meet me on the day of the strike on Al-Baqa cafe on Gaza’s beach on June 30.

With every loss, my response would be to stop working for a few days. The only funeral I attended was Abu Hatab’s. I don’t know why. But I regret it.

I regret seeing his skull emptied. I regret touching his cold body. I regret imprinting his lifeless image in my mind. It nearly broke me. I almost quit the job. Maybe I should’ve spoken to a therapist then, but what would be the point? It won’t bring them back. It won’t protect me from myself.

I isolated myself. Spent days doing nothing. Just scrolling through my phone. Watching everything except news.

I think I was close to depression. But I pulled myself back. I chose to work. Only work.

I’m not afraid of dying. Death doesn’t hurt the dead. It hurts the living. What I fear is surviving with a permanent disability.

I think of colleagues who lost limbs, like photojournalist Sami Shahada, or those now paralyzed, like Fadi Al-Waheed or Mohamed Abu Mustafa, whose spine was injured during the latest strike on Nasser Medical Complex.

That’s what haunts me: being broken but alive, in a place like Gaza, with no care and no escape.

I asked myself often: what’s the point? Why haven’t all the massacres we documented ended this war? Why are thousands still getting killed intentionally? Why have we lost dozens of colleagues, and others left disabled for life?

I found only one answer; we have no other choice. Maybe, just maybe, our reporting will contribute to holding someone accountable. Maybe it will bring the smallest measure of justice.

I ask myself: Will I keep going?

And I answer: Yes. I’m still here. I’ll keep going. Until the war ends, or I do.