Ismail Al-Ghoul, Gaza City's voice to the world(the suffering of press in the war)

The media have always had a special relationship with war-limited war or conflict, mainly because each of these situations is considered of major news value and of utmost public importance and interest due to its security implications. Conflict is the adrenalin of the media. Journalists are trained to look for disagreements and find war irresistible. And when it happens to be 'our war', the involvement of the media has been assessed to be much more enthusiastic and extensive.

Ismail Maher Khamis Al-Ghoul (January 14, 1997 – July 31, 2024) was a Palestinian journalist and Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza. Israel assassinated him on the evening of July 31, 2024, along with his cameraman, Rami al-Rifi, in an Israeli airstrike that targeted them in Gaza City. This happened shortly after they covered the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran from Haniyeh's destroyed home in the Gaza Strip.

Ismail had appeared in a live broadcast on Al Jazeera hours before his assassination. Despite responding to the Israeli threat of bombing the area where he was present by driving away, and despite his wearing a press vest, an Israeli drone deliberately chased the car he was traveling in with Rami and launched a guided missile at them, killing them both instantly.

According to preliminary figures by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 111 journalists and media workers are among those killed since the start of the war on October 7. The Gaza government media office has put the figure at 165 Palestinian journalists killed since the war began, the president of the CPJ, said the killing of al-Ghoul and al-Refee is the latest example of the risks of documenting the war in Gaza.

String of journalist killings

In December 2023, Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Samer Abudaqa was killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis. Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, was also wounded in that attack.

Dahdouh's wife, son, daughter and grandson had been killed in an Israeli air raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp in October 2023.

In January 2024, Dahdouh's son, Hamza, who was also an Al Jazeera journalist, was killed in an Israeli missile strike in Khan Younis.

Prior to the war, Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead by an Israeli soldier as she covered an Israeli raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank in May 2022.