The last chapter of Al Jazeera, Gaza time.. Coverage continues news

After a short, deceptive truce at the end of 2023, Israel expanded its war on the Gaza Strip and committed hundreds of massacres against civilians, but this time the targeting was more systematic and ferocious against those carrying cameras and microphones.

In the third and final part of the program “Al Jazeera Gaza Time”, the screen turns into a bloody record documenting the martyrdom of other journalists from the channel’s crews, who fell one after another in a series of systematic attacks that extended over the months of the bloody war.

The episode opens on a shocking scene in the Beach Camp, west of Gaza City, where Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi were martyred by a direct missile while they were covering the news of the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), in Tehran.

Photojournalist Osama Al-Ashi, who arrived at the targeting site, recounts the last moments that he heard a first strike, then 10 minutes later came a second strike that turned the car into a mass of fire.

The helmet is the legacy of the martyrs

After the martyrdom of Al-Ghoul, reporter Muhammad Qurei picked up his late colleague’s helmet and wore it in his coverage, saying in a responsible voice: “Can we continue with the same soul that Ismail cut off? Perhaps fate led this helmet to be worn by me, to complete the same soul, the path, and the message.” He did not know that this legacy would cost him his life a few weeks later.

In Deir al-Balah, Al-Jazeera photographer Ali Al-Attar was injured by shrapnel in his brain while covering the bombing operations, losing part of his sight and entering an intermittent coma. In Jabalia camp, the Al-Jazeera team was targeted with direct fire at the entrance to the camp, which led to photographer Fadi Al-Wahidi being injured in the neck and permanently paralyzed.

In Nuseirat camp, Al Jazeera photographer Ahmed Al-Louh was martyred while trying to document civilian rescue operations, directly targeting journalists and paramedics.

After the announcement of the second ceasefire and the resumption of the war in a more fierce manner, Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent Hossam Shabat was assassinated while covering the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in northern Gaza, where he was documenting the horrific Beit Lahia massacre, in which dozens of women and children were killed.

Incitement and threats

The targeting was not only physical, but extended to a systematic campaign of incitement and threats. The spokesman for the occupation army, Avichai Adraee, published a video clip in which he mocked Anas Al-Sharif’s coverage of hunger in Gaza, describing it as “fabricated drama” and “crocodile tears.”

But Al-Sharif responded firmly from the journalists’ tent: “These threats continue and continue, in incitement attempts also by the occupation army to (in order) stop broadcasting these scenes, but this is my duty and I (transmit) the picture with all professionalism and all credibility.”

At the height of the escalation, after Muhammad Qurei finished broadcasting live about the catastrophic humanitarian conditions in Gaza City, he returned with his cameraman, Ibrahim Zaher, to the Al-Jazeera tent set up at one of the entrances to the Al-Shifa Medical Complex.

Anas Al-Sharif, photographer Muhammad Nofal, and photography assistant Moamen Aliwa were waiting for them for dinner. Several minutes after they gathered inside the tent, they were surprised by a direct missile fired by an Israeli march.

The five journalists were martyred immediately, in addition to journalist Muhammad Al-Khalidi, who was in the nearby tent, and in another targeting inside the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, Al-Jazeera photographer Muhammad Salama was martyred.

Coverage continues

Despite the heavy losses and deep pain, the coverage did not stop, as new correspondents joined the team, namely Shadi Shamiya and Nour Khaled in Gaza City, while Al Jazeera’s correspondents in the south continued to report the truth from the field.

Over the course of two full years of war, the Israeli killing machine pursued journalist crews throughout the Gaza Strip, and more than 250 journalists were martyred, including the martyrs of Al-Jazeera: Samer Abu Daqqa, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, Mustafa Thuraya, Ismail Al-Ghoul, Rami Al-Rifi, Ahmed Al-Louh, Hossam Shabat, Anas Al-Sharif, Muhammad Qurei, Ibrahim Zaher, Muhammad Nofal, Moamen Aliwa, and Muhammad Salama.

Al Jazeera journalists tasted the horror of killing, the horrors of destruction, the tragedy of displacement, and the bitterness of hunger. They lived with people at the doors of hospitals, and spent the night in dilapidated tents that could not stand the heat of summer or the cold of winter. They walked silently and steadfastly at the funerals of their fellow journalists, one martyr after another, but despite this, their coverage did not stop.

On October 10, 2025, the ceasefire agreement entered into force after 471 days of killing and extermination. The surviving Al Jazeera reporters took off those blue journalistic shields that had not left their bodies for 15 months, and Moamen Al-Sharafi returned to northern Gaza in search of the remains of his destroyed house in the Jabalia camp.

After extensive international communications, Israel finally agreed to release photographer Ali Al-Attar to complete his treatment in Jordan, and Fadi Al-Wahidi, who was paralyzed, was also removed from the Gaza Strip after continued humanitarian pressure.