Like Their Fallen Colleagues…

Gaza’s Women Journalists Stand on the Threshold of Death Terrifying Testimonies from the Heart of the Genocide

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Exclusive – Hayat Washington

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In a war that has dragged on endlessly—where “press” markings have become an Israeli pretext for direct targeting—Palestinian women journalists in Gaza have found themselves facing the darkest chapter the profession has ever known. Since the assault on the Gaza Strip began on October 7, 2023, the lines between daily life and journalistic duty have completely collapsed.

Gazan women journalists endure conditions that are nothing short of catastrophic in what has become one of the world’s most dangerous reporting environments. Since the war began, more than 240 journalists have been killed in the besieged Strip, including 43 women—some killed in direct strikes, others dying under the weight of constant fear and terror.

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Hayat Washington spoke with several female Palestinian journalists still reporting from the heart of an unfolding genocide. Listening to them recount their daily lives, and the brutality they face, makes Reporters Without Borders’ description of Gaza as “a cemetery for journalists” painfully precise.

With a trembling voice full of sorrow, tears, and exhaustion, journalist Nour Al-Suwerki, 45, began describing the psychological and social toll on women journalists in Gaza. She opened with:
“What I’m living through is beyond my capacity to endure… I just need to catch my breath.”

“What should I even tell you about? The bathroom crisis? The absence of the most basic necessities? Or the monthly cycle? Even a cup of tea—if we find one—feels like a luxury in this bitter life we’ve been living under fire for more than two years.”

Nour, a mother of two, had not slept for days. Her memory drifted back to the beginning—the first Saturday of the war:
“There wasn’t even space for us to lie down after an exhausting day of work.”

A mother to Jamal (14) and Alaya (12), she suddenly found herself living the story rather than reporting it. Like many Gazan women journalists, Nour lost loved ones and saw her home destroyed, all while carrying the immense burdens of her profession—and of being a woman, a mother, and a wife. With repeated displacement and daily threats of death, those responsibilities multiplied.

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After pausing to collect her thoughts, she described one of her greatest fears:
“I was terrified of covering the evenings. I truly feared a sudden strike. I kept thinking about my children… my husband. What if I’m killed? What if I’m injured?”

She continued:
“Imagine that from the first days of the war in October until February, I didn’t take off my hijab except during a quick shower. We forgot ourselves; our mission became more important than everything else. My hair fell out, my face burned under the sun, my heart burned from the grief of the bereaved, and my soul choked on the smoke of burning wood.”

Nour’s suffering echoed closely the experiences of young journalist and photographer Mariam Abu Daqqa, who documented the genocide until she was killed in an Israeli strike that targeted a journalists’ tent near Al-Shifa Hospital.

Just days before her death, Mariam had spoken to Hayat Washington:

She paused, unsure where to begin. Should she start with the hell of displacement? With the repeated targeting of journalists’ tents? With the unique suffering of women in the profession? Or with the grim reality that helmets and flak jackets have become bullseyes inviting Israeli fire?

At 32, Mariam had covered numerous escalations throughout her career, but she admitted that this war was the most brutal and merciless of all.

Moving from one place threatened by death to another not much safer, she described the horrors of displacement:
Her family had been forced to flee nearly 12 times in just three months, chased by Israeli firepower each time.

In what she described as the most savage war Gaza has ever endured, she said:
“Displacement and hunger have become part of our lives. Repeated displacement is the hardest thing for journalists and families. Fear, anxiety—where do we go? What awaits us there? Who will we lose tonight?”

“Today we report the news, and tomorrow we become the news.
We’ve lost so many journalists before our eyes while covering this escalating violence. The occupation targets our tents everywhere.”

Mariam stopped abruptly, took a deep breath—as though remembering another layer of pain—and continued:
“You know… journalism is a profession of hardship, but here in Gaza, it is a road to death.”

She added:
“A flak jacket and helmet are supposed to protect a journalist, but in Gaza they’ve become targets for Israeli soldiers. Sometimes we avoided wearing them because they put us in more danger.”

Mariam also spoke about the psychological damage:
“I miss my son’s embrace… my only child, who left Gaza injured. I haven’t seen him in months. The war took my mother too—she was martyred when the occupation bombed the family’s displacement site in Rafah.”

“There is no safe place in Gaza,” she repeated, describing the Strip’s reality:
“Fear, anxiety, hunger… the sounds of explosions and bullets follow us everywhere. No sleep, no rest. Our faces have changed; our bodies have become frail. These are our feelings, and this is the situation for every person in Gaza. We’re forced to adapt.”

But fate had yet another tragic example to give—one that underscored the scale of suffering among Gaza’s women journalists.

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After Hayat Washington arranged an interview with journalist Shorouq Shaheen, who warmly agreed to participate, a day passed… then another, and another—until news came that her uncle had been killed. All we could do was send her our condolences and prayers, asking God to grant the deceased His vast mercy and join him with the martyrs and the righteous.

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