The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced the martyrdom of two relatives of the Palestinian journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh as a result of an airstrike targeting their car in the city of Rafah, Palestine, on Monday evening.
A spokesperson for the ministry stated that the Israeli occupation forces “killed three citizens by targeting a civilian car” and offered condolences to Wael Al-Dahdouh, who lost his wife and three children since the beginning of the war.
According to Russia Today, the two brothers, Mohammed and Ahmed Al-Dahdouh, were the nephews of Wael Al-Dahdouh, and video footage showed the destruction that affected the car’s roof and the process of retrieving a body from it.
Mohammed and Ahmed Al-Dahdouh, aged 30 and 26, respectively, according to one of their relatives, lived with their family in northern Palestinian territories near Gaza City before the war. They had recently moved to the south and arrived in Rafah two weeks ago.
Two days ago, Wael Al-Dahdouh mourned his son Hamza after losing his wife and two of his children at the end of October in an Israeli strike. Hamza was killed along with his colleague Mustafa Tharia in an airstrike that targeted their car in the southern Gaza Strip.
The war in Gaza has had a devastating impact on journalists, with a significant number of them being killed while covering the conflict. According to the latest figures released by the government media office in Gaza, at least 100 journalists have been killed since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza on October 7. This includes Palestinian journalist Muhammed Abu Hweidy, who was the latest casualty, killed in an Israeli air raid on his home in east Gaza City. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a respected international media watchdog, reported that within the first ten weeks of the war, 77 journalists and media workers were killed in Gaza, including 70 Palestinians, four Israelis, and three Lebanese. These numbers indicate an unprecedented concentration of journalist deaths in this conflict, as noted by CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), another well-known media advocacy group, has also highlighted the grave dangers faced by journalists in Gaza. They reported that 13 journalists were killed while actively covering the war in Gaza, and the total number of journalists killed in Gaza – irrespective of the line of their work – was 56. This makes Gaza the most lethal place for journalists in 2023. RSF has even filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court for “war crimes” over the deaths of journalists in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas. The overall global toll of journalists killed in 2023, however, has seen a decline, largely due to fewer journalists being targeted in Latin America and less violence in countries like Syria and Iraq.
