Gaza- For a week, Moamen Al-Sharafi, Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip, has been searching in the markets for a “shader”, a piece of thick nylon, to renovate his family’s tent, especially with the approaching rainy season.
The Al-Sharafi family’s tent, like the rest of the displaced people’s tents, needs restoration after its nylon walls became worn out after a full year of exposure to the scorching sun, but the markets are devoid of materials used in making and restoring tents due to Israel preventing their entry.
Journalist Al-Sharafi told Al-Jazeera Net that he is trying “with difficulty” to balance the needs of his displaced family with the requirements of his journalistic work.
He added, “We are like people. We suffer in providing for our families’ needs. There are great difficulties in providing food, drink, clothes, and everything. We also suffer at work in extremely harsh and dangerous conditions.”
Al-Sharafi confirms that he has not stopped working, even for a single day, since the beginning of the war, due to the cruelty of the war and the ugliness of Israeli violations.
It is noteworthy that journalists are at risk of death at the hands of the occupation army, for their role in exposing the crimes of the occupation.
Risks
According to the government media office in the Gaza Strip, the occupation army killed 173 journalists during the war that began on October 7, 2023.
Like the rest of his fellow journalists, Al-Sharafi was exposed to many risks during his journalistic work, and he almost lost his life because of them, especially during the occupation’s siege of Nasser Hospital, and the siege of the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah.
22 members of his family were also martyred, including his parents, 3 of his brothers, and a number of their sons and daughters. Despite this, Al-Sharafi did not stop covering, as he mourned his relatives in a live message on Tel Aviv Tribune, and he continued his work in reporting news and exposing the crimes of the occupation.
He added, “I never had the idea of stopping work for a single moment because of the risks, because our work is a trust that every journalist holds.”
Al-Sharafi admits that he is under great psychological pressure, especially due to the loss of a number of his fellow journalists in the Tel Aviv Tribune office.
Martyrs of the island
The occupation army killed 4 journalists from Tel Aviv Tribune’s crew in Gaza: Samer Abu Daqqa, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, Ismail Al-Ghoul, and Rami Al-Rifi, and many of them were injured, led by the bureau’s director, Wael Al-Dahdouh.
Samer Abu Daqqa
Samer Abu Daqqa, a photojournalist for Tel Aviv Tribune in Gaza, was martyred on December 15, 2023, after lying on the ground bleeding and trapped for 6 hours, as the ambulance was unable to reach him after he was injured alongside his colleague Wael Al-Dahdouh while they were covering a bombing. Israeli forces in the vicinity of a school in Khan Yunis.
Hamza Al-Dahdouh
Hamza Al-Dahdouh was martyred. The photographer in the Tel Aviv Tribune office in Gaza on January 7, 2024, in an Israeli attack that targeted the car he was traveling in west of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, to join his mother, brother, and sister who were martyred in a bombing that targeted them in the center of the Strip at the end of last October.
Ismail Al-Ghoul and Rami Al-Rifi
Ismail Al-Ghoul joined Al-Jazeera, to work as its correspondent with the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. On July 31, 2024, the occupation forces assassinated Al-Ghoul and his colleague, photographer Rami Al-Rifi, in the Beach Camp in Gaza City.
suffering
During his coverage of the war, Sami Barhoum, a correspondent for the Turkish channel TRT Arabia, was exposed to five serious Israeli attacks, the first of which was in October, and the last of which was on August 26.
Barhoum also lost his home, his office, and his car as a result of the occupation’s attacks.
Every day, Barhoum has dozens of questions about continuing or stopping coverage, but he soon renews his pledge with himself to continue “performing the national message, even if that leads to him losing his life,” as he says.
Barhoum said in his interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the journalist suffers greatly, whether in his journalistic work amid limited capabilities, or in providing for the needs of his displaced family.
The television correspondent recounts part of his suffering, which begins with the loss of the elements of “personal safety,” and does not end with the inability to provide the appropriate clothing in which he should stand in front of the camera.
The Gaza Strip suffers from a severe shortage of most goods, such as food, clothes, and hygiene tools, because the occupation authorities prevented their entry.
Barhoum is constantly worried about his family residing in a tent, especially when he is covering times of Israeli bombing and raids.
challenge
From time to time, when he misses his journalistic work, photographer Sami Shehadeh decides to go out into the field, defying the loss of one of his limbs.
Shehadeh, a cameraman for the TRT Arabiya channel, was injured in an Israeli bombing in the Nuseirat camp last April, which resulted in the amputation of his foot.
Shehadeh told Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “After my injury, I practice simple media work, because I am on a crutch and my profession as a photographer requires me to have two feet and two hands, so when I feel bored I go into the field, but not in the previous way.”
The Palestinian journalist hopes to complete his treatment outside Palestine, after the end of the war, to extract 5 shrapnel that is still inside his right hand, in addition to installing an artificial limb that will enable him to return to work normally.
Shehadeh recalls the challenges he faced while working during the war, saying, “When we went out on any mission, we did not know whether we would return or not. We would bid farewell to our families, and when we returned home we would hug them.”
One of the things that bothered Shehadeh the most while photographing the martyrs who fell as a result of Israeli crimes was imagining the presence of members of his loved ones and relatives among them.
Coverage continues
For a whole year, photojournalist Mahmoud Ekki, who works for Al-Manara Media Services Company, does not remember that he stopped working to cover the crimes of the occupation in Gaza, except for 20 days during his treatment period after he was injured in an Israeli bombing.
Ike was injured by shrapnel that penetrated his right hand while he was filming the occupation army’s destruction of one of the towers in the Nuseirat camp, causing him to lose feeling in it and lose about 70% of its strength, in addition to suffering from excruciating pain.
Until now, doctors have been unable to diagnose Ike’s condition, due to the malfunction of the MRI machines in the Gaza Strip’s hospitals.
He told Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “Despite my injury, I only stopped covering for 20 days during the period during which surgeries were performed. This is our duty, otherwise the world will not know what crimes are happening here.”
Like other journalists, Ikki struggles to provide for his family’s needs and balance them with the needs of his work.
The occupation’s violations against Ikki did not stop with his injury to his hand, as his personal press equipment, including cameras, lenses, and his personal phone, whose price was estimated at about $8,000, was destroyed.
Ikki reveals that he currently works using the equipment of his journalist friends, who loan him their cameras, lenses, and equipment.
Tahseen Al-Astal, deputy head of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, believes that media professionals actively participated in reporting and exposing the crimes of the occupation, which prompted the occupation to directly target them and their families, and destroy their institutions.
He added, “Journalists, after a year, despite all the crimes, have a determination to carry out their professional and humanitarian duty, and therefore they work day and night to convey the crimes that are happening to the whole world.”
He stated that the occupation’s prevention of foreign journalists entering the Gaza Strip increased the burden and responsibility placed on Palestinian journalists, and made them “work in extremely difficult and dangerous conditions.”
Tahseen Al-Astal, deputy head of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, holds Israel and the US administration fully responsible for the crimes committed against fellow journalists at the hands of the occupation.