Mohammed R. Mhawish
+972 Magazine / August 7, 2024
How do we continue with business as usual after another friend, and another icon of Palestinian journalism, was brutally killed by Israel for doing his job ?
As I picked up my phone on the afternoon of July 31, my heart started to race. A barrage of texts and news alerts about Ismail’s death filled my screen. Over the following days, I tried to suppress my sobs, control my tears, and write — calmly and objectively reporting the news I had just learned, like Ismail would do.
But for God’s sake, how? How could I continue with business as usual after another icon of Palestinian journalism — someone whose kindness and bravery I admired, and who was seen as a role model for many — was so brutally killed for merely doing his job?
Just two hours before his death, Ismail Al-Ghoul had appeared on Al Jazeera’s live broadcast from Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, where he was gathering reactions to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Then an Israeli drone strike targeted his car as he drove through Gaza City, killing Ismail and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi, along with 17-year-old Khaled al-Shawa, who was riding his bicycle nearby.
It was beyond my capacity to report on such traumatic news, when Ismail was no ordinary reporter but my friend and colleague, whose voice echoed through every Palestinian household in Gaza for the past 10 months.
Detained, injured, and undeterred
Ismail endured the struggles of displacement, starvation, and detention as he persevered in his reporting, despite the targeted violence against journalists in Gaza.
Although he was only 27 years old, and could have pursued a different career, he refused to stay silent and abandon his profession. Instead, Ismail joined Al Jazeera in November and chose to document a genocide as one of their main reporters in Gaza City, with broadcasts nearly every hour. With his recurring sign-off, stretching out the vowels of his name — “Ismaeel Alghoool, Al-Jazeera, Gaza City” — he was a reassuring presence to me and his millions of viewers worldwide.
Ismail was always in the field — reporting from refugee camps, hospitals, targeted areas, and destroyed neighborhoods. He offered detailed reporting from the ground on the Israeli army’s killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab and her family in January, covering the events articulately and forensically.
Ismail was also the eyes and ears for the world when the Israeli military raided Al-Shifa Hospital, at a time when much of the international media denied the testimonies of Palestinians. He continued reporting from the scene bravely and professionally until Israeli forces arrested him. Despite the fact that he was a well-known Al Jazeera journalist, the soldiers treated him brutally and interrogated him harshly during his detention.
As he wandered through the alleys and camps of northern Gaza, he often found himself in the line of the Israeli army’s fire. Although he was injured more than once amid the army’s activity in the Shuja’iya neighborhood — most recently when a piece of shrapnel pierced his leg — he was determined to continue his work, and spoke with eloquence, clarity, and modesty. For an entire generation of young Palestinian journalists, he will be remembered as a lasting example of courage and perseverance.
Of course, Ismail was not just a reporter. He was also a father, husband, son, and human being, whose hunger-stricken body and worn-out eyes spoke to the fear and suffering he himself went through.
Days before his death, Ismail sent a message to a colleague, expressing the emotional toll of nearly 300 days of relentless war in Gaza.
“Let me tell you, my friend, that I no longer know the taste of sleep. The bodies of children and the screams of the injured and their blood-soaked images never leave my sight. The cries of mothers and the wailing of men who are missing their loved ones never fade from my ears.
“I can no longer bear the sound of children’s voices from beneath the rubble, nor can I forget the energy and power that reverberates at every moment, turning into a nightmare. It is no longer easy for me to stand before the rows of coffins, which are locked and extended, or to see the dead people more than the living who are fighting death beneath their homes, not finding a way out to safety and survival.
“I am tired, my friend.”
It breaks my heart, dear Ismail, to be writing about you — and not with you.
Killed for telling the truth
Ismail was killed barehanded. He wasn’t holding a gun or firing a rocket, and posed no threat to anyone. On the contrary, he was clearly marked as a member of the press, wearing his flak jacket and protective helmet. Still, the Israeli military deemed him a target and decapitated him with a drone strike, in what was one of the cruelest images to be broadcast on television during this war.
Ismail was not a member of any military group and never took part in any such activity, despite anything that the Israeli military or others might claim. When the army detained Ismail as he reported on the raid of Al-Shifa Hospital, it was merely because he was a journalist and they wanted to suppress his coverage — which was made evident by the fact that he was released a few hours later.
Reporting should never be a crime, but for Israel, it is. As a journalist, I knew when I was in Gaza that Israel could kill me at any moment, and it nearly succeeded. Ismail and the other 113 Palestinian journalists killed since October 7 haven’t been so lucky. And sadly, he will not be the last journalist to bear the ultimate price for just doing his job: telling the truth.
Ismail deserved to live. To be reunited with his wife. To bring candy and toys to his 2-year-old daughter and hold her again in his arms. To continue reporting and make silly jokes before he went on air. To be around the children of Gaza and try to cheer them up when he was most scared and hungry. He did not deserve to die this way — a drone strike to the head.
As fellow Palestinian journalists from Gaza, our lives have been deemed dispensable, and long before the current war. It is so painful to mourn the loss of Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi — not because we haven’t experienced the loss of fellow journalists before, but because each time feels like the first. Yet, we persist in our determination to document the deaths of our colleagues, report on the genocide, and somehow circumvent our deliberate targeting, even more hopeful to dream of a safe future.
Justice for Ismail might not be in sight, but he and others before him, like Shireen Abu Akleh and Hamza Dahdouh, empower us. They give us strength, teach us to keep telling our stories, and remind us that we deserve to live in peace and freedom.
Rest in peace, Ismail. No more suffering. No more starvation. Just like your wife said, today, we are all proud of you and of everything you have done.
Mohammed R. Mhawish is a Palestinian journalist and writer from Gaza, currently based in Cairo; he is a contributor to the book A Land With A People — Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism (Monthly Review Press Publication, 2021)
