Wounded in the Line of Duty: One of the Last Journalists in North Gaza

November 20, 2024 – Palestine/Israel –

As international journalists leave Gaza, Palestinian reporters remain, and one of them was grievously wounded but survived. In October 2024, after Israel publicly labeled several Al Jazeera journalists as “terrorists” with the apparent intent to silence them, the few remaining media workers in northern Gaza came under intensified threat.

In November 2024, during a double‑tap airstrike on a residential compound, one such Al Jazeera journalist was critically injured—a targeted blow in an operation that seemed directed at silencing frontline reporting. The strike came merely a month after the IDF publicly threatened to assassinate him, raising clear concerns that he was being singled out specifically for his work reporting from North Gaza.

Despite the grave danger, the journalist continued covering the crushing siege and humanitarian catastrophe. According to his outlet, Al Jazeera, even after being seriously wounded, he refused evacuation and remained committed to reporting from the enclave’s dead zone.

This January–March period culminated in a tragic escalation: on March 24, 2025, two journalists—Hossam Shabat (one of those previously targeted) and Mohammad Mansour—were killed in an airstrike further south in Gaza. Their deaths underscored the mortal risks faced by remaining reporters. The injured journalist from November, while wounded, is among the very few still alive—and still working—in northern Gaza.

Press rights groups, including Al Jazeera, CPJ, RSF, and IFJ, have condemned the pattern: journalists are being targeted, cataloged, and eliminated at a pace that marks this conflict as the deadliest yet for media in the region. The fact that an injured journalist remains alive—and reporting—speaks volumes about both his courage and the extreme pressures still shaping ground-level journalism in Gaza.

Reference – 

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/ry4b1glpke

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/mar/25/journalists-killed-israeli-strikes-hossam-shabat-mohammed-mansour-press-freedom-groups-condemn

Israel Targets, Injures One of the Only Journalists Left in North Gaza in Strike