His right forearm is still in a splint, more than a year after the explosion he miraculously survived in December 2023, while reporting live on an Israeli forces raid on a school in Khan Younis, Gaza. On that occasion, Wael Al-Dahdouh was far luckier than his cameraman, Samer Abudaqa, who lost his life in that bombing. Yet to call Wael Al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera's bureau chief for the Gaza Strip, a lucky man is a very difficult exercise: tenacious, courageous, even heroic, yes. Lucky, perhaps only up until that 7 October 2023 — the day that changed the history of Gaza. And his own.

From Al Jazeera to the Chamber of Deputies, Wael Al-Dahdouh's account

"I am here among you and I still cannot believe it," he opens from the press room of the Chamber of Deputies, the guest of honour at an event entirely boycotted by members of the ruling majority. "In Gaza, the profession of journalist can be defined as the profession of death. But this also touches wives, children, fathers, cousins. Exactly as in the whole story of the war in Gaza, which is beyond all logic." Wael Al-Dahdouh speaks from hard-won experience, still bearing the marks of the collective and personal tragedy that struck him: it was 28 October 2023 when his family was massacred in an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp, and he learned the news while broadcasting live on Al Jazeera. Then came the rush and the dignified grief, captured by the media, as he embraced his six-month-old nephew, already lifeless — images that travelled around the world. "We had been assured that the place where my family had been taken was safe. It was not."

Wael Al-Dahdouh appears at the Chamber of Deputies at the initiative of the Inter-group for Human Rights chaired by former UNHCR spokesperson Laura Boldrini, and of the Palestine-Israel friendship group coordinated by Stefania Ascari, to speak about the importance of journalism in war contexts such as Gaza, where "all the doors are closed to the outside world." Where since 8 October 2023, the day after the Hamas attacks that triggered Israel's disproportionate response, "we could always sense that something dangerous was about to happen, but never with the violence and cruelty with which it then unfolded."

Rebuilding life, starting from the ceasefire

At least 50,000 people have been killed since that day, under the bombs and bullets in Gaza, and among them more than 200 journalists: all Palestinian, or at most already present in Gaza before 7 October, because the international press has never been permitted to enter the Strip to document the atrocities taking place prior to the fragile ceasefire of recent days. Deaths that were avoidable and often, says Wael, not the result of "mistakes," but deliberate: "We do a job guaranteed by all international laws. Despite this, we must pay an enormous price. We had vehicles with very clear press identification markings, the word Press, and we moved with great caution. And often even with the permission of the ground occupation troops. Despite this, they shot at us — as they did at me in Khan Younis."

Wael retraces the dramatic days following the deaths of his wife, two of his children, and six other members of his family. "I asked myself what I could possibly do — people advised me to take a break. But I decided to go straight back to work. We must keep broadcasting from Gaza; that is the primary objective, without stopping." Even if, he adds, "all the cameras in the world cannot describe the situation of women, children and displaced people." In Gaza, 70 to 80 percent of existing buildings have been destroyed: "Nothing is left. People sent me photos of places I knew well and I couldn't recognise anything. There is no trace of life, nor any reason for life." Of the life that nevertheless does exist, he says he would like to talk about the conditions in which it is lived: "What it is like to have a wash, to find water to drink." Today, in Gaza, there is a fragile ceasefire, put at risk in recent days by a renewed flare-up of tensions over the prisoner exchange: according to Wael Al-Dahdouh, "we must apply it faithfully — that is where we must start. Of course, before all of this it would have been possible to reach a two-state solution for two peoples; now there are many more obstacles. But if there is any chance of recreating life in Gaza, we will do it."