The heartbreaking moment a journalist reporting on the war between Hamas and Israel found out several of his close family members were killed in an air raid was caught on camera.
Wael Al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera Arabic’s bureau head in Gaza, entered the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah on Wednesday to find his wife, son and daughter lying dead in the morgue.
Harrowing footage shared by Al Jazeera shows the devastated journalist touching the face of his 15-year-old son, Mahmoud, who dreamt of pursuing the same career as his father.
Another clip shows Mr Dahdouh holding his seven-year-old daughter’s body, whose face is covered in blood, while seemingly speaking to her.
The journalist’s grandson, Adam, was declared dead two hours later.
The Palestinian journalist’s family members were at the Nuseirat refugee camp, south of Wadi Gaza, when the airstrike happened.
Some of Mr Dahdouh’s relatives – including a toddler granddaughter – managed to survive the attack, which hit the house they were staying in within the Nuseirat refugee camp – described by the UN organisation for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, “busy and crowded” months before the war started.
Many Palestinians living in the northern part of the Gaza Strip have relocated south of Wadi in accordance with the evacuation order issued by Israel ahead of the expected Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground invasion.
Looking shocked and devastated by the loss, Mr Dahdouh blamed the airstrike on Israel.
He told Al Jazeera on his way out of the hospital: “What happened is clear. This is a series of targeted attacks on children, women and civilians. I was just reporting from Yarmouk about such an attack, and the Israeli raids have targeted many areas, including Nuseirat.”
Mr Dahdouh’s family had been displaced by a previous bombardment on their neighbourhood and had moved south of Gaza City, the journalist’s network said in a statement, adding more of his relatives are “buried under the rubble”.
Referring to the IDF and the Israeli order to Gazan civilians to head south of Wadi, Mr Dahdouh said: “This is the ‘safe’ area that the occupation army spoke of.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike.
Israel has been launching hundreds of airstrikes on the Strip since October 7, when Hamas terrorists carried out an unprecedented assault on soldiers and civilians, killing around 1,400 people, devastating several kibbutzim and taking around 220 people hostage.
The Gazan health ministry said more than 6,500 people have so far been killed in airstrikes over the past weeks, including around 2,700 children.
