In Gaza, all deaths are loud. They are announced by the boom and kaboom of the bombs and the pounding artillery that births these deaths. And yet, the deaths are only as loud as the numbing numbers of casualties, emphatically enlisting the count of lives cut short by an iniquitous Israel.
Before her life was lost to an all-too-familiar, whooshing airstrike, Fatima Hassouna, the 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist had asked, of those who would survive her, to ensure that she did not go quietly. “If I die, I want a loud death,” the photojournalist had posted on her social media in August 2024. “I don’t want to be just another breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or space.”
A war documentarian who had lived out loud, covering the conflict in Gaza on the ground for 18 months, was killed along with her 10 family members, including her pregnant sister, in a targeted attack on her home last Wednesday. The photojournalist had been documenting Israel’s invasion of Gaza. The targeted airstrike by IDF on her home in northern Gaza killed the bride-to-be Fatima, just a few days before her planned wedding.
It’s not a coincidence that 24 hours before she was killed, an announcement was made that the documentary, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, featuring Fatima and focusing on her life in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began in October 2023, would be debuted at a French independent film festival that runs parallel to Cannes. It was also no coincidence that the Palestinian Oscar-winning director of No Other Land, Hamdan Ballal, was abducted by Israeli forces, after being badly beaten by a group of settlers in the West Bank, three weeks after winning his Oscar in Hollywood.
Killing media personnel under the cover of targeting Hamas fighters has become a frequently used, hackneyed excuse that Israel always resorts to. The same argument that the US is using in its defence while bombing Houthis in Yemen, saying that ‘only’ the rebels are being bombed, a plea which is not convincing, as it is impossible to prevent civilian casualties during such indiscriminate bombing.
The killing and detention of journalists who are harbingers of naked truth amid IDF’s disinformation and censorship campaign regarding Gaza, is routine for the barbarous Israeli forces; particularly targeted are journalists who, like Fatima, manage to enhance their reach by making it to world platforms to project Israel’s atrocities on global screens. Such spokespersons instantaneously face the backlash of Israel’s venomous vengeance.
Since Israel's war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest possible price, with their lives, for reporting the truth
Gaza has been the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history, with over 205 journalists killed since October 2023 when Israel began its bombardment of Gaza. And since the recent ceasefire with Hamas hardly lasted, Israel has resumed its carnage with intensified airstrikes, backed by an all-supportive America.
Produced by the Iranian director Sepideh Farsi, the documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk features stories highlighting Gaza’s ordeal and the broken and battered existence of the people of Palestine through filmed video conversations between Fatima and Farsi. According to Farsi, who lives in exile in France, 25-year-old Fatima became “my eyes in Gaza, fiery and full of life. I filmed her laughs, her tears, her hopes and her depression.” Responding to Fatima’s death Farsi asserted that Fatima had been targeted for her much-followed work as a photojournalist and recently publicised participation in Farsi’s documentary.
Fatima’s heart-rending death elicited a response from the Cannes Acid film festival, where Farsi’s documentary will be screened in May. “We had watched and programmed a film in which this young woman’s life force seemed like a miracle,” the statement said. “Her smile was as magical as her tenacity. Bearing witness, photographing Gaza and distributing food despite the bombs, mourning and hunger.”
Fatima documented the merciless massacres through her lens, oblivious to the dangers of constant bombardment and gunfire attacks in Gaza. She captured people’s pain, while shutting out her own, bringing to the world’s eyes the poignancy dominating the reality that is Gaza. Her photos and words bear witness to Gaza’s lifeless life, especially the struggles defining the existence of women and children.
Loud in life, as she shouted out the truth to the world through her captures and depictions of Gaza in the hope of evoking humanity, when Fatima expressed the desire to have an immemorial, resounding, ’loud death’ she must have felt chagrined by the world’s callous response to her constant callings through her journalistic work.
Having witnessed and recorded innumerable deaths from close, Fatima must have been grief-stricken by how swiftly and unrepentantly Palestinian lives were put to an end ; how they were annihilated every passing minute with the whole Muslim world sitting back and watching, without taking any steps to stop the genocide. The hypocrisy of western democracy and the complicity of the Muslim ummah must have disappointed her beyond measure.
How worthless and insignificant the lives and deaths of her country fellows were, she must have mused, hence, realising the need to not be reduced to another silent statistic like them.
But while voices like Fatima’s and of those who report on Gaza, bringing the truth to the world while portraying the pain-filled lives of the besieged Gazans, are being silenced, their messages will never be muted out. Just like their short ‘loud lives,’ the sounds surrounding their deaths are continual, conspicuous and clamorous that would prevail and resonate through history.
These deaths of journalists and media professionals reveal that parallel to the Gaza conflict there is an information war taking place in the region, where though the truth is being surreptitiously suppressed, it will keep rising and rearing. In a world dominated by misinformation and disinformation Israel is pushing for the dissemination of more disinformation by annihilating voices that bring the truth to light. This information war will, however, continue to be waged amid the most savage form of censorship where in order to silence a voice, its right to exist is brutally taken away.
Since the war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest possible price, with their lives, for reporting the truth. They face very high risks as they try to cover the conflict, the ensuing famine, displacements, and the destruction. With little protection and lack of equipment, food, water and shelter, they try to do their jobs to show reality to the outside world. Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, a part of that truth in Gaza is lost, though its pursuit never defeated.
Fatima Hassouna’s courage and defiance in the face of sheer inhumanity and elimination is what will keep her name afloat and the moment of her death alive and resounding. She was a force of veracity to be reckoned with, too strong to be ignored or omitted by the proponents of falsehood.
Though, wrecked by the war on Gaza, Fatima stands rescued by her inimitable work; the immortal images, the ever-lasting and ever-inspiring stories of a people of unwavering resilience and faith; a people who belong to her land, the Palestine.
Fatima’s final post on Facebook was a collection of photos of Gaza fishermen by the sea, less than a week before she was killed. She posted the pictures with this short verse:
“From here you get to know the city. You enter it, but you don’t leave, because you won’t leave, and you can’t.”