Three months after Al Jazeera journalist Wael al-Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter, and grandchild were killed by an Israeli airstrike, he is burying another child killed in an attack in Gaza.
His son and fellow journalist, Hamza al-Dahdouh, died while working in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian officials.
Al Jazeera posted video of the weeping father holding and kissing his dead son’s hand and quoted him as saying: “Nothing is harder than the pain of loss. And when you experience this pain time after time, it becomes harder and more severe.”
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In October, eight members of his extended family were killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp. He was delivering a live report when he got the news.
Among the dead were his wife, 15-year-old son Mahmoud, 7-year-old daughter Sham, and toddler son Adam. Hamza, 27, was working for Al Jazeera with another journalist, Mustafa Thuraya, when they were killed, Waled said.
“Hamza was everything to me, the eldest boy, he was the soul of my soul… these are the tears of parting and loss, the tears of humanity,” Wael al-Dahdouh said at the cemetery, according to Al Jazeera.
In a statement, Qatari-owned Al Jazeera Media Network said the attack on Hamza al-Dahdouh and Thuraya’s vehicle shows “the Israeli forces’ determination continue these brutal attacks against journalists and their families, aiming to discourage them from performing their mission, violating the principles of freedom of the press and undermines the right to life.”
It called for “the International Criminal Court, governments, human rights organizations and the United Nations to hold Israel accountable for its heinous crimes and demands an end to the targeting and killing of journalists.”
The United Nations says 77 members of the media have lost their lives covering the Israeli-Hamas war.
