Journalists who covered the Gaza war shared harrowing experiences of losses and survival, expressing profound disappointment with the global community’s silent response to the killing of media professionals by Israeli forces.
During the International Press Institute (IPI) World Congress and Media Innovation Festival 2025, a panel of journalists discussed the trouble, distress, and heart-wrenching moments they faced during the Gaza war, saying it was a “deep sense of abandonment” where they witnessed the violent assault on the press.
Al Jazeera journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh, who lost his five family members, including his wife, in Israeli strikes and found his surviving daughter under the rubble, asked: “What did my family do?”
Al-Dahdouh said it was a “unique and agonising reality of reporting” that you had to choose between being a “journalist or a human.
He asserted that the international media failed to respond appropriately to the violence. “We were left alone,” he stated, emphasising that much more was required.
The statistics shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) showed that at least 238 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since October 7, 2023.
Rawan Damen, another senior journalist affiliated with Al Araby TV, praised Al-Dahdouh’s balanced reporting, distinguishing between the failure of mainstream international media to address the “genocide” and the efforts of independent outlets and some organisations that did speak out.
Laurent Richard, a French journalist, warned of the grave consequences of inaction, highlighting the “normalisation” of the murder of journalists and a pervasive lack of accountability.
“Before the war, we described Gaza as a large prison; now it is a large cemetery,” said Basel Khalaf, a journalist, while describing the situation of Gaza, urging the global media to move beyond statistics and tell the human stories of Gazan reporters.
Khalaf also outlined the urgent needs of his colleagues in Gaza, including essential equipment, medical treatment for the injured, and freedom for those imprisoned by Israel, imploring the international press to keep the story alive.