As the world marks International Women’s Day, global media coverage is filled with symbolic gestures and pompous talk about women’s rights. Statistics are promoted, initiatives are celebrated and hashtags are raised.
Meanwhile, real oppressors of women are whitewashed, their crimes covered up, and those who oppose them smeared.
But here in Gaza, we know who our oppressors are and who our leaders are. The Israeli occupation has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian women and girls over the past two and a half years. It has ruined the lives of millions of them.
Against the Israeli genocidal onslaught, the women of Gaza have each stood up and protested in their own way. Especially women journalists have shown true heroism. He has taken on the dangerous task of reporting, witnessing and documenting atrocities in a genocidal war.
Their cameras, notebooks and phones have become not only tools of storytelling but tools of survival and memory.
For daring to challenge the occupation, women journalists in Gaza have paid a heavy price. Of the 270 journalists and media activists killed by Israel, more than 20 are women.
Among them was Maryam Abu Dakkah, who was targeted by the Israeli army in August along with other journalists at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. He worked as a field reporter for years, documenting the suffering of Palestinians under siege and then reporting on the realities of genocidal war.
Maryam was not only a courageous journalist but also a loving daughter and mother. When she was young, she donated one of her kidneys to her father, who was battling kidney disease.
She was completely devoted to her son Ghaith. During the war, he made the painful decision to be sent abroad for safety.
Before dying, she wrote a heartbreaking message to her son: “Gaith, your mother’s heart and soul, I want you to pray for me, don’t cry over my death.”
Four months before Maryam was murdered, an Israeli occupation killed another brilliant photojournalist: Fatima Hassouna.
“If I die, I want a brutal death. I don’t want to be just breaking news or just a number among the crowd. I want a death that the world hears about, an impact that goes through time and images that cannot be buried by time and space,” Fatima wrote on social media before her death.
As a talented young photojournalist, he had a bright future to look forward to. She too had been married for months.
The Israeli army bombed her home in northern Gaza, killing her and six members of her family, just a day after she announced that a documentary about her would be screened at the Cannes Independent Film Festival.
Fatima left us suddenly and too soon. Her departure was not quiet, however. It was as loud as she wanted it to be. A documentary film about her was screened at the festival titled “Free, Free Palestine!” received a standing ovation with chants of
The mass targeting and killing of Palestinian journalists is devastating for survivors. It has left deep psychological scars.
Women journalists speak quietly of their fear, pain and exhaustion. They know that death can strike from the sky at any moment, and yet they continue. He continues to report on the war he cannot escape. They continue to report on the genocide they are experiencing.
They are starving as they search for food for their families. They document displacements as they flee their homes with their children. He writes about the moments of the bombing after he survived the bombing. He interviews the bereaved while grieving the loss of a loved one.
They work under conditions that would make journalism impossible elsewhere. They operate in a place with no electricity, almost no internet connection and no safe passage for those wearing a press vest.
Despite these obstacles, female journalists from Gaza continue to write, record, document and broadcast to millions around the world. His reporting shaped the world’s understanding of what life was like during the genocide.
As a young journalist in Gaza, I see these women as my heroes. He is a constant source of inspiration for me. Their strength and commitment to reporting even in the face of danger, displacement and personal loss shows me what it means to be a journalist.
In June 2024 I turned to journalism myself. For months after the war began, I watched the world crumble around me, not knowing how to react. I had reached a point where the genocide had taken so much from me that it became unbearable.
Writing gave me a purpose. It became an outlet for my emotions and a way to process the fear, grief and bewilderment of living in genocide.
Documenting what is happening in Gaza is one of the few things still within my power. I now feel a simple but urgent responsibility: If I don’t tell these stories, who will?
Collecting our reality is a form of resistance. Every picture and every testimony is proof that Palestinians exist, that our land, our communities matter, and the world can’t say it doesn’t know.
Journalism to me is not just about informing the audience. Preserving memory in place of history that forces are actively trying to erase.
I know the risks.
I know the world doesn’t always listen.
But I decided to go ahead anyway.
How I honor the women journalists in Gaza who gave their lives while reporting the truth and refusing to look away from the world.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
(tags to be translated) Opinions
