The on-air outburst of grief by TV correspondent Salman al-Bashir seemed to channel the mood of all Gaza.
From the crowded halls of Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip late on Thursday, al-Bashir was reporting on the waves of wounded and dead Palestinians arriving from Israel’s heavy bombardment on the southern strip.
One of the victims, loaded into the hospital morgue with 10 of his family members, was his own colleague, veteran Palestine TV correspondent Mohammed Abu Hatab, 49.
Photo: AFP
An hour earlier, Abu Hatab had delivered a live report on the Israel-Hamas war’s casualties from that same location for Palestine TV, a network owned by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Hamas’ political rival.
Searching for words to describe what Abu Hatab’s loss meant to him and to the network, al-Bashir cracked with emotion. He broke down, his voice holding sorrow and weariness in gruff, pleading phrases.
“We can’t take it anymore, we are exhausted,” al-Bashir said. “We are going to be killed, one by one.”
The Ramallah-based anchorwoman on the split screen began to weep.
Al-Bashir was flushed, pacing backward as he said the world was ignoring the war’s staggering toll on Gaza civilians.
“No one is looking at us or the extent of this disaster or the crimes that we are experiencing in Gaza,” he said.
Still holding his microphone, he slid off his flak jacket marked with the word “PRESS” and unstrapped his helmet.
“These protection jackets and helmets don’t protect us,” he said, flinging the equipment to the ground. “Nothing protects journalists... We lose our lives for no reason.”
His words, streamed live by Palestine TV, ricocheted around social media.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, the Israeli military’s retaliation has killed more than 9,000 Palestinians and wounded thousands more, says the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. Among them have been 31 journalists and media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based watchdog.
The health ministry reported that more than 112 doctors and medics are also among the dead. Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 people in Israel on Oct. 7, most of them civilians.
At 8:30pm on Thursday, after signing off from a live report on Gaza’s soaring death toll, Abu Hatab headed to his nearby home in Khan Younis where he lived with his wife, six children, brother and brother’s family, his colleagues said.
On his way, he spoke to the Palestine TV bureau chief, Rafat Tidra.
“He was so professional, as always,” Tidra said. “In that conversation, he was focused on what he was going to report the next day, how we were going to work.”
At about 9:30am, an Israeli airstrike hit his house, wiping out the Abu Hatab family. No one survived. His neighbor’s houses only sustained limited damage from the blast.
When asked, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said he was “not aware of reports” of Abu Hatab’s death.
Israel says it is only targeting militants, not civilians, and blames Hamas for operating in densely populated residential areas. Israel’s ground offensive in northern Gaza, which began a week ago, is aimed at toppling Gaza’s Hamas rulers. At the same time, airstrikes across the territory have continued unabated.
Abu Hatab’s colleagues at Palestine TV, where he spent 26 years reporting, were in shock on Friday. They remembered him as a quiet and gentle man who brought homemade hummus to worn-down journalists camped outside Nasser Hospital during the war, even as Israel’s tight siege made food and water harder to find.
When the war first erupted, he sprang into action and never stopped working, his colleagues said.
“He was live on air the whole time covering Khan Younis, his city, his people, simple people,” said Nasser Abu Bakr, head of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and Abu Hatab’s longtime friend.
Abu Bakr was unsettled after their final phone conversation the night before his death. He said that Abu Hatab sounded weary and depressed.
“He told me: ‘Everything is terrible. I don’t know when I will be killed,’” Abu Bakr said.
Before hanging up, Abu Hatab had one last request, he said: “Please, please, pray that God protects us.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS