‘I Refuse A Cheap Death’: Israel Kills Another Palestinian Journalist In Gaza
A PALESTINIAN writer, poet and journalist has been killed in an Israeli air attack in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, according to his family, taking the total number of journalists killed in the Israel-Palestine conflict since October 7, 2023 to 220.
Mohammad Hijazi was among nearly 90 Palestinians slain in Israeli attacks across the besieged territory in the last 24 hours, according to a statement from the Gaza Ministry of Health on Sunday.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the Jabalia camp since Israel imposed a military siege of northern Gaza on October 5 and intensified bombardment, forcing thousands to flee. Israel has prevented even aid groups from supplying basic food items to the area.
“I don’t know if I will write to you again. I keep what I have written and am writing. Maybe it will come to light one day. I refuse a cheap death. I curse the murderer,” Hijazi wrote on Facebook in August last year.
“Let us in this bottom that we have finally reached, arm ourselves with patience and prayer, and count the days we have lived as a historic achievement, while awaiting what is coming with a broken heart, an extinguished eye, a head held high, and a spirit that fights until the end of the road.”
It was not immediately clear whether Hijazi was working for a specific media organisation when he died.
Since the beginning of its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 220 journalists and media workers, including Hijazi.
The Health Ministry reported on Sunday that at least 88 Palestinians had been killed and 208 others injured in Gaza in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, another baby died from the cold in Gaza, as displaced Palestinians lack warm clothes and are forced to live in tents that provide little protection from the weather.
The child’s mother told Al Jazeera that her baby, Yousef, was born healthy, but he became the eighth infant to die in Gaza in recent days due to the cold.
“They didn’t give a single moment to feel happy with my baby,” she said. “He slept next to me and in the morning I found him frozen and dead. I don’t know what to say. No one can feel my misery. No one in the world can understand our catastrophic situation.”
The latest fatalities bring the death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza to at least 45,805 since October 2023, while an estimated 109,064 have been injured.