Al Jazeera condemned Israel’s killing of two of its journalists in Gaza. In a statement the news outlet called the deaths a:
cold-blooded assassination.
Their Arabic channel correspondent Ismail Al Ghoul and cameraman Rami Al Rifi were “targeted by Israeli occupation forces” during their coverage of Gaza’s Al-Shati refugee camp. The statement also read:
This latest attack on Al Jazeera journalists is part of a systematic targeting campaign against the network’s journalists and their families since October 2023.
Its bureau chief in Gaza, Wael al-Dahdouh, was wounded in an Israeli strike in December that killed the network’s cameraman. His wife, two of their children and a grandson were killed in the October bombardment of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. His eldest son, Hamza al-Dahdouh, also an Al Jazeera staff journalist, was killed in January when a strike targeted a car in Rafah.
Ismail and Rami
Since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza on 7 October, Al Jazeera has aired continuous on-the-ground reporting on the effects of Israel’s campaign. The network’s office in Gaza has already been bombed in the conflict and two other correspondents killed.
Al Jazeera said Ghoul and Rifi’s killings showed: “the urgent need for immediate legal action against the occupation forces”.
In fact, the channel went on to say it would:
pursue all legal actions to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes and stands in unwavering solidarity with all journalists in Gaza.
In a statement, Hamas condemned the killings as a “heinous crime” which it said was “aimed at terrorising and silencing” Palestinian journalists as they reported “the ongoing genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip for nearly ten months”.
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) CEO Jodie Ginsberg said:
CPJ is dismayed by the news that Al Jazeera TV reporter Ismail Al Ghoul and cameraman Rami Al Refee were killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza. Journalists are civilians and should never be targeted. Israel must explain why two more Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in what appears to be a direct strike.
The CPJ also found that:
As of Aug 1, 2024, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 113 journalists and media workers were among the more than 39,000 killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
Thorn in their side
Clearly, Al Jazeera has been a thorn in the side of genocidal Israel for quite some time now. The media outlet has often come in for criticism from Israeli prime minister and butcher Benjamin Netanyahu. So much so that the network has been banned in Israel since early May.
The general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative shared his thoughts on social media:
The Israeli air strike decapitated AlJazeera journalist Ismail Al ghoul and killed the journalist Rami Alrifi as well . The total number of journalists killed in Gaza since October 7th is 165. Atrache md is the video of their bombarded vehicle. pic.twitter.com/0pIhegrrfq
— Mustafa Barghouti @Mustafa_Barghouti (@MustafaBarghou1) July 31, 2024
It has become sickeningly customary to hear and see of Palestinians being decapitated by the sheer force of airstrikes. Ismail had remained steadfast in his reporting of the genocide. However, this is not to paint a sanitised picture of him. The Instagram of the Palestinian Youth Movement shared the following words from Ismail before his murder:
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 hearing.
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.
Now, Ismail’s colleagues and fellow Palestinians are stood at his funeral, bearing witness to his coffin.
On social media, images of Ismail’s decapitated body are being shared. He died wearing his press vest, sitting in a car. At his funeral, his fellow colleagues, also wearing their press vest, viewed his body missing his head.
Israel’s “cold-blooded assassination”
Whilst Ismail had a more public persona due to his work as a journalist, his cameraperson Rami Al Rifi has less information available about him publicly. But, let’s be clear: Rami was killed in a targeted strike for being a journalist, and died doing his job. The Al Jazeera behind the scenes Twitter account shared the following memorialisation:
Al Jazeera colleagues gathered to condemn the cold-blooded assassination of Ismail Al Ghoul and Rami Al Rifi in Gaza by Israeli occupation forces and to call for holding the perpetrators accountable.#Justice4Journalists https://t.co/Tl16rDKK0S pic.twitter.com/pwFikYhzYD
— Al Jazeera PR (@AlJazeera) August 1, 2024
The Quds News Network also shared images of the two martyrs:
Al-Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif mourns his friends and colleagues Ismail Al-Ghoul and Rami Al-Reefi, who were assassinated by Israel today while reporting from Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/UT110FKjZq
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) July 31, 2024
Journalist Maram Humaid shared an emotional essay to Ismail, writing:
We didn’t want to believe it, but then, the confirmation came from colleagues out in the field. And I collapsed on my knees…It’s the same shock that sweeps over us every time we lose a journalist colleague despite our knowledge that everyone is under the guillotine of war and everyone is a target.
And it’s the same shock that reminds us of the bitter truth that no one hears us, no one cares about us.
A woman told me on Wednesday that the world is tired of us and our news. Bored of the war on Gaza, indifferent to our suffering. She was right!
Humaid continued:
The world is tired of us, oh, my colleague Ismail.
Tired of seeing you on screen for 300 days, broadcasting live news around the clock from northern Gaza.
Tired of you reporting, hungry and unable to find food. You wrote about your hunger, lost your brother and father in the war, were arrested and tortured at al-Shifa Hospital, separated from your displaced wife and children in the south of Gaza.
The world was tired of you until the screen reported on your killing, your head severed from your body in a brutal reflection of the war that you covered.
Israel: murdering journalists with impunity
Palestinian journalists have risked their lives, their family, their sanity, their safety to report on the Israeli genocide being enacted on their people. They have risked more than everything, whilst knowing that the world at large does not care. It has become chillingly common to see journalists whose reporting we diligently followed, to go dark because they have been murdered.
Even now, Ismail and Rami’s colleagues are continuing their work. That tens of journalists that Israel has killed whilst reporting on their genocide should be a global outrage. There should be swellings of pain and grief at yet more decapitated Palestinians.
But, there won’t be.
Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israel are business as usual for the West. For a region that harps on and on about press freedom, you won’t see many established journalists in the West grieving Ismail and Rami.
