New Delhi:

Jazeera journalist Wael Al Dahdouh – who 24 hours ago mourned the death of his wife, son, daughter and nine other family members in an Israeli air strike – has vowed to continue reporting on Tel Aviv’s war on Gaza. Mr Dahdouh told state-run Turkish news agency Anadolu, “This will never silence our voices. Journalism is my noble mission.” “Israel is targeting civilians and committing massacres against families. This is part of what Palestinian families living in Gaza go through every day,” Mr Dahdouh said.

Mr Dahdouh, who is Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, was told his wife and children had been killed shortly after a live broadcast from the besieged enclave on Thursday.

Hours later Al Jazeera aired visuals from the morgue in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Palestine’s Deir el-Balah, where a grief-stricken Wael Al Dahdouh cradled the body of his seven-year-old daughter and cried over those of his wife and 15-year-old son.

READ | “In Gaza, No Safe Place”: Girl’s Plea Before Mother Dies In Israeli Strike

Mr Dahdouh’s two older children – Mahmoud and his sister Kholoud – are believed to have survived the attack. Days earlier they had shared a video message to the global community, highlighting the utter devastation in Gaza and pleading for help.

“Help us to stay alive” was their outcry to the world from Gaza.

Mahmoud, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Wael Dahdouh son, joined by his sister Kholoud, sent a message to the world, days before Mahmoud, his mother, and younger sister Sham were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza pic.twitter.com/HWJ8SjIpvx

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 25, 2023

“Whole neighbourhoods have been destroyed,” Kholoud says in a video that shows residential buildings reduced to rubble and entire streets covered in that debris.

“In Gaza there is no safe place…”

READ | Why Israel Is Attacking South Gaza After Telling Civilians To Go There

The Dahdouh family was among a million civilians ordered by Israel to flee from north Gaza ahead of strikes that targeted residential neighbourhoods, as well as schools, mosques and hospitals. Israel also temporarily rolled tanks into north Gaza – the first step in its widely anticipated ground offensive.

READ | Israeli Tanks Enter North Gaza In “Targeted” Overnight Raid, Retreat Later

The family was sheltering in the United Nations-recognised Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, which was called a “safe area” by Israeli forces.

The family of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh has been killed in an Israeli attack at the Al Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza, where they had forcibly evacuated to shelter from Israeli bombardments pic.twitter.com/ya64Lgunbp

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 25, 2023

Despite the loss – shared by tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children from Gaza, Israel and other nationalities caught up in this bloody war – Mr Dahdough insisted to Anadolu he will continue covering Israel’s strikes on Palestinians.

Tel Aviv’s attacks on Gaza follows the October 7 cross-border attack by Hamas that claimed over 1,400 lives, including civilians and children. Israel has described the Hamas terrorists as “animals” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised revenge.

Nearly 8,000 people have been killed in the conflict – the bloodiest of the five wars between Israel and Gaza so far. The dead include more than 6,500 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis, as well as foreign nationalities.

Tel Aviv has allowed small aid convoys to enter Gaza, a heavily blockaded strip of land home to over two million people, but it is only a fraction of basic supplies needed.

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New Delhi:

Tragic stories have been emerging from the Gaza Strip where civilians every day are becoming the collateral damage of an all-out war between its ruler Hamas and Israel. Yesterday, the family of an Al Jazeera journalist was killed in an Israeli air strike. The host who announced the news on the Qatar-based network was seen choking up live on television.

The wife and two children of its Arabic-language channel’s Gaza correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh were killed in a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza strip.

“We note this breaking news that we transmit on the Al Jazeera network. A number of family members of our colleague, Wael Al Dahdouh were killed, including his wife, son and daughter,” the anchor said.

Al-Dahdouh was “reporting the bombing that targeted the area where a number of his family members were martyred,” the anchor, fighting back tears, said.

“Al-Jazeera’s host bursts into tears as he announces the news of the tragic murder of the son, daughter, wife and several grandchildren of his colleague Wael al-Dahdouh in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.”

EDIT: Subbed and added the video of the journalist.

RIP pic.twitter.com/u6lMdPkOsP

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) October 25, 2023

In images and videos on social media, Al-Dahdouh was shown mourning over the bodies of his wife and children at a hospital in Deir el-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip.

The journalist’s family were staying in a temporary home after evacuating Gaza City following Israel’s warning for residents to move south as its forces intensified strikes targeting Hamas.

“This is the safe zone the occupation (Israeli) army was talking about,” Al-Dahdouh said on Al Jazeera.

“The indiscriminate assault by the Israeli occupation forces resulted in the tragic loss of his wife, son and daughter, while the rest of his family is buried under the rubble,” the Al Jazeera earlier said in a statement.

Israel has been pounding the narrow Palestinian territory in response to a massive cross-border attacks by Hamas operatives on October 7 that Israeli officials say have killed more than 1,400 people.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 6,500 people in Gaza, a rise of more than 700 since Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.