Al Jazeera’s Chief of Gaza Bureau, Wael Dahdouh, is currently in Qatar to receive medical care after sustaining injuries in an Israeli airstrike while on assignment covering the ongoing conflict.
Dahdouh, recognized as the face of Al Jazeera Arabic’s reportage on Israeli military operations in Gaza, arrived in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on Tuesday evening, journeying through Egypt.
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Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Dahdouh was wounded during a drone strike by Israeli forces in December, an attack which took the life of Al Jazeera Arabic’s cameraman, Samer Abudaqa, while they were reporting in southern Gaza.
On social media, we saw heartfelt messages about Dahdouh’s arrival:
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…
— Mohamed Moawad (@moawady) January 16, 2024
This trip marks Dahdouh’s first time leaving Gaza since the uptick in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that began in October. Previously, he faced a profound personal tragedy when an Israeli airstrike destroyed the shelter where his family was staying in the Nuseirat refugee camp, resulting in the deaths of his wife Amna, son Mahmoud, daughter Sham, and grandson Adam, after their displacement from their home in Gaza City.
In earlier January, Dahdouh’s pain was compounded when his eldest son, Hamza, also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed in a missile strike by the Israeli military in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
Despite enduring great personal loss, Dahdouh has continually provided support to his family, friends, and colleagues, and has persistently faced the cameras to report on the dire situation in Gaza with resolution and determination.
“We pay a very high price, but we ultimately question, ‘What alternative do we have?'”, Dahdouh stated in an interview with NBC. “Do we just sit in our homes, anticipating the impact of missiles? Abandon this job, relinquish this humanitarian message we have been tasked with? Abandonment is certainly not a choice,” he declared.
During the time of mourning for Hamza, Dahdouh expressed a vow to continue documenting the realities of Gaza to the global audience, acknowledging that many others in Gaza are similarly saying goodbye to their loved ones.
The Al Jazeera Media Network has issued a strong condemnation of the attack that led to Hamza’s death, as well as the passing of Mustafa Thuraya, another journalist with the network. The list of Al Jazeera journalists and staff who have perished or lost family members in conflict continues to grow.
The region has seen nearly 100 journalists killed since October, led by data released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) indicating that, within the first 10 weeks of the conflict, more journalists were killed than in any single country in a full year.
