Gaza Journalist Struggles to Keep Going: ‘I Remember That Child When He Screamed, Dying’

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Fadel Mghari had a camera. It was destroyed months ago, and the Gaza-based photojournalist hasn’t been able to get ahold of a new one since. Yet he has continued to capture harrowing images from inside the enclave that has been besieged by Israel’s military since the Oct. 7 attack, using his smartphone to document the bombings and their bloody consequences.

His work was enough to get him a gig with Al Jazeera, though only on a freelance basis. The network doesn’t provide him with equipment, and pays only for the photos and videos they choose. The images that are not bought by Al Jazeera, Fadel uploads to his Instagram. Obtaining internet access is a constant challenge; often, he settles amid the chaos in hospitals, where wifi connections are most readily available.

In the year since Oct. 7, Israel has restricted the access of foreign journalists into Gaza. That means that almost all information and imagery from the enclave has come from a small set of reporters based there. As Gaza has been battered by bullets and bombs, with more than 42,000 believed to be dead, a majority of the enclave in ruins, and catastrophic levels of hunger, the challenges faced by those journalists have been unimaginable. The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 128 have been killed, making it one of the deadliest wars for the press in recorded history.

Unlike international correspondents who parachute into conflict zones with crews and security to cover unfolding events, reporters like Mghari live each day without reprieve from the war they cover.

I have kept in contact with Mghari since the beginning of this conflict. In a recent conversation, he said he has limited access to food and clean water. Several of his colleagues and loved ones have been killed in the last year. Still, each day he rushes to the scene of the latest bombing or airstrike in order to capture that moment on his phone in the hopes of giving the world a glimpse of reality inside Gaza.

“I deal with this responsibility with extreme caution and great fear for my family, and myself,” he said. “Many of my colleagues were killed in their homes and were bombed and turned into pieces.”

Much of what Mghari captures on his smartphone is images of the aftermath of attacks at the scene or in hospitals around Gaza, where Mghari was born and lives now in the Bureij refugee camp. The experience takes a toll.

“The most difficult thing is to watch the children, and they are young children, watching some of them utter their last breath in front of you while you are completely helpless,” he said. “You stand confused.”

Mghari provided to Mediaite graphic images of a lifeless child who was killed in a bombing earlier this week. “I saw him uttering his last breath, and his brain was outside of his head,” Mghari said.

In one video taken by Mghari, a baby lay across a hospital gurney with what appears to be a head wound. The baby utters a whisper of a cry as a doctor frantically attempts life-saving measures while a man watches on and weeps.

In another video, Mghari captured the aftermath of an Oct. 1 strike on a group of children playing soccer at the entrance of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

The chaotic footage showed bloodied children, some unconscious, others semi-conscious, being rushed into the al-Aqsa Hospital. Several of the children had their limbs blown off.

“These are unforgettable things that accompany me in my sleep,” Mghari said. “I remember that child when he screamed, dying. I’m really tired. I hope all of this ends.”

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