As Israel's brutal onslaught entered its fourth month, Benjamin Netanyahu's army has set some grim records in terms of civilian death toll, with more than half of 23,000 dead being innocent women and children.
What is more deplorable, it has tried to muzzle the voices reporting the reality on the ground, by deliberate targeting of journalists and members of the media.
Israel has placed itself at the forefront of a disconcerting statistic, killing at least one journalist every day in its 94 days of war.
According to the Gaza Media Office, at least 109 journalists have been killed since Oct. 7, while some of them have lost multiple family members to indiscriminate attacks.
The number of media workers killed by Israel in approximately three months exceeds the total count of journalists killed throughout the entire six-year span (69) of World War II, according to the Freedom Forum, a Washington-based foundation advocating for press freedom.
In comparison to Gaza, during the 20-yearlong Vietnam War (1955-1975) 63 journalists were killed while 17 media workers lost their lives in the three-year-long Korean War (1950-1953).
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) based in New York, in the war between Russia and Ukraine that started in February 2022 and has been ongoing for about two years, a total of 17 journalists have lost their lives.
In Gaza, however, the issue is not only murder but how their immediate families have also been targeted by Israel.
Doha-based Al Jazeera's veteran Gaza correspondent Wael al-Dahdouh, often dubbed as a "mountain," lost the fifth member of his family earlier Sunday after his son and another journalist were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Al-Dahdouh's wife, two other children and a grandson had died earlier in the war.
However, he has continued to report on the fighting between Israel and Hamas even as it has taken a devastating toll on his own family, becoming a symbol for many of the perils faced by Palestinian journalists, dozens of whom have been killed while covering the conflict.
Hamza al-Dahdouh, who was also working for Al Jazeera, and Mustafa Tharaya, a freelance journalist, were killed when a strike hit their car while they were driving from Khan Younis to the southern town of Rafah, according to the Gazan Media Office.
Despite the loss, Wael Al-Dahdouh, 53, has nearly always appeared on air in the blue helmet and flak jacket worn to identify journalists in the Palestinian territories.
Speaking to Al Jazeera after his son's burial, al-Dahdouh vowed to continue reporting on the war.
"The whole world must look at what is happening here in the Gaza Strip," he said. "What is happening is a great injustice to defenseless people, civilian people. It is also unfair for us as journalists."
Earlier in December, a strike killed the father, mother and 20 other family members of another Al Jazeera correspondent, Momen al Sharafi.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday conveyed his condolences over the killing of Hamza al-Dahdouh, expressing he was "deeply, deeply sorry."
"I am deeply, deeply sorry for the almost unimaginable loss suffered by your colleague, Wael Dahdouh. I am a parent myself, I can’t begin to imagine the horror that he has experienced, not once, but now twice," Blinken told a joint news conference with Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani in Doha.
Meanwhile, China said Monday it was "deeply saddened" over the death of Palestinian journalists, urging Israel to cease-fire "immediately."
"We express our condolences to Al-Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh, who lost his son," said Mao Ning, spokeswoman of China’s Foreign Ministry.
Mao said China urges "all parties concerned, especially Israel, to exercise restraint, effectively implement relevant U.N. resolutions, cease fire immediately and avoid further tragedy," Mao said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro decried the killing of Hamza al-Dahdouh on Sunday.
"108 journalists have been murdered in the Gaza Strip by bombing in their homes," Petro wrote on X.
"We are in shock," Christophe Deloire of the media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders wrote Sunday on X, formerly Twitter, calling the situation a "never-ending slaughter."
The Gazan press office has called rights organizations to condemn the attack and to put pressure on Israel to stop its attacks on the Palestinian people.
Al Jazeera said in a statement it "strongly condemns the Israeli occupation forces' targeting of the Palestinian journalists' car," accusing Israel of "targeting" journalists and "violating the principles of freedom of the press."
The TV network is working to file a legal complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) following the Israeli "assassination" of its cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa last month.
Many international legal experts have already said that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute war crimes or genocide, and countries such as Türkiye and South Africa are working to bring legal cases to that effect in international courts.
