Palestine Letter: My colleagues in Gaza call being a journalist a ‘death job’

If I were in Gaza, would I have told all the stories I’ve been able to share with the world since leaving? Or would the Israeli army have killed me at the first opportunity alongside my family?

I ask myself this question often, because over 220 of my colleagues have been killed for doing their job and their duty. Just as the people of Gaza have endured the most unspeakable crimes, so too have journalists. For my friends and colleagues, every day has meant facing impossible choices.

This is especially true under the shadow of the Israeli threat that follows every journalist. In the field, they face the danger of being killed outright — whether while working, among their families, or through the pain of knowing their loved ones could be targeted because of the stance they take. These forms of deprivation were not abstract; they happened, again and again, to colleagues during the war.

This is the message the Israeli army sends to journalists: if we speak the truth, we risk death. It is a threat that never leaves the minds of those who report on the lives of Gaza’s people. The army wants to give us pause. The first question becomes not whether what we write is true, but whether Israel will accept it.

Our reality is harsh and unforgiving, shaped by the blood of children and the quiet grief of women who have lost everything. It exists under the weight of international silence and the failure of the world to act.

But my colleagues do not surrender. They do not submit. They are of this people, and they choose not to abandon them. And just as they love their profession, the people on the ground always rally around journalists, showing them the love and respect any human being would wish to receive in their country.

Palestinian journalist Osama al-Arbid emerged from under the rubble after the Israeli army bombed his father’s house west of Gaza City, where he and his family had fled. At dawn, on May 31, the Israeli military bombed his house, killing 10 members of his family. Osama survived.

Osama was calling out for his loved ones around him while under the rubble, and the only person who responded was his daughter, Lana. He comforted and tried to reassure her until rescue teams could reach them. But suddenly, her voice faded, and she stopped answering. Osama’s fear increased as he lay under the rubble of his home, covered in concrete blocks and destroyed concrete columns.

“My daughter Lana was talking to me under the rubble. I told her that we would emerge shortly and that everything was fine,” Osama was shown saying in a clip circulating online. “When her voice disappeared, I felt I had lost her and that she had been martyred. But after I was pulled from the rubble, I found that they had pulled her out before me.”

His joy at her survival was short-lived. After he was rescued, he learned that 10 members of his family had been killed in the bombing, including his wife, two of his sons, Iyad and Muhammad, and his sister, who was nine months pregnant. Her unborn child was killed in the womb. His brother, his wife, and their daughter were also killed.

Osama is not the first journalist the Israeli army has tried to kill, and he won’t be the last. The army continues to annihilate the Gaza Strip and kill every voice there. Every one of my colleagues whom I speak to there knows they are at risk of being killed at any moment. It has gotten to the point that journalists in Gaza have come to call their profession a “death job.” And yet, it doesn’t stop them from doing it.