Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief has become a well-known figure around the world for his reporting and his steadfastness in continuing to work despite the immense personal suffering that he has faced in the past three months.
Israeli attacks have killed Dahdouh’s wife, two of his sons, a daughter and a grandson as well as his camerman, Al Jazeera’s Samer Abudaqa. Dahdouh himself was injured in the attack that killed Abudaqa.
“The cost is very high, but at the end of the day, we ask ourselves, ‘What is the other option?'” he told Ayman Mohyeldin with US-based NBC News in an interview. “We sit in our homes, waiting for missiles to land. Leave this job, give up this humanitarian message that we delivered? This is definitely not an option.”
Speaking about his remaining family, Dahdouh said they hardly see him.
“They got used to that, and they suffered. This is a very big sacrifice they made, and they made that sacrifice to enable me to continue my job,” he said. “So when the time comes and their blood sheds and their lives are sacrificed, I should leave them and give up this job? Never.”
Dahdouh added that journalists in Gaza feel let down at the lack of support they have received, considering the high death toll among those working in the enclave.
“Many Palestinian journalists feel that we were let down, left alone to face this massacre and this carnage and the world did not look at the bigger picture, did not really stand by us as we would have liked,” he said. “We feel that we are being killed twice: once by the bombs and once by this silence, this shy way of expressing support.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7orjJmrGenaKWe6S7zGilnq%2BjZLmqwsSbo6ifX2d9c4COamZqbV%2BewLOtxKWqZq%2BRp3qwuoygmLOZXaG2t7GMoaynn5WneqS7y51kraCimq61sc1mpKiqlWK5qsLErGSipl2crrut