GAZA, (PIC)
The scenes in Palestine refuse to be ordinary in all their details, for they are always unique in the sacrifices, heroics, trials, steadfastness and challenges; and the closest scene to this uniqueness is when a journalist and his photographer companion stand on the ruins of a martyr’s family home, mourning the martyr and enumerating his virtues, and behind them the children of Palestine sit on what remains of the wounded Gaza’s debris, consoling themselves in the martyrdom of their heroic symbol by caressing his majestic image above the ruins, and no sooner does the journalist broadcast his message through the lens of his companion, than an Israeli missile strikes them, turning them into body parts, They are the journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul and the photographer Rami Al-Rifi, after they eulogized the martyr leader Ismail Haneyya.
The voice of Ismail Al-Ghoul represented one of the most important Israeli targets since the beginning of the war; as the occupation has, since its aggression on the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last October, sought to obliterate the facts and conceal the Palestinian narrative from the world so that its crimes do not appear. Al-Ghoul was one of those who challenged the Zionist arrogance through his insistence on conveying the image as it is, the image of suffering, killing and destruction, and the targeting of all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip, which disturbed the occupation until it carried out its crime by assassinating him.
The journalist Ismail al-Goul worked as a correspondent for Al Jazeera news channel in the city of Gaza, and the photographer Rami al-Rifi worked as a photojournalist for the same channel for consecutive months during the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
The press vest and shield, which represent legal protection for those who wear them under all international agreements, were not enough to prevent the occupation from targeting the journalists as the occupation declares from the first day of its aggression that its crimes are above all laws and transcend any agreements.
On his part, Al Jazeera journalist Tamer Al-Mis-hal described the assassination of al-Goul and photographer Rifi as a “heinous and systematic crime” targeting Al Jazeera.
He revealed details of the contact between Al Jazeera’s administration in Doha and its correspondent in Gaza before his assassination; where there was a contact between them at 4:53 PM, and Al-Goul informed the administration that the Israeli occupation targeted the roof of a neighboring house to the rubble of the house of the late political bureau chief of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Ismail Haneyya in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City.
Al-Goul was reporting near the rubble of Haneyya’s house, along with other journalists, and understood that the Israeli bombardment was a message to him and his fellow journalists, so they evacuated the place, which was not a military target as evidenced by the presence of children there raising Haneyya’s picture.
Al-Mis-hal added that the Al Jazeera correspondent and the photographer left the place, but Al Jazeera administration received a call about half an hour later informing them that they were targeted and they were martyred.
The journalist said that Al-Ghoul is a 28-year-old resident of the Shati refugee camp, who graduated from the journalism department at the Islamic University of Gaza and joined Al Jazeera channel during the current war being waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, moments after announcing the martyrdom of its leader and head of its political bureau Ismail Haneyya in an Israeli raid in Tehran, received the news of the martyrdom of the journalists (Al-Ghoul and Al-Rifi), and issued a statement affirming that Israel’s assassination of both of them is a heinous crime to be added to the series of crimes it has committed against Palestinian journalists, with the aim of terrorizing them and silencing them away from conveying the details of the ongoing genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
It added that committing this cowardly crime near the home of the martyr leader Ismail Haneyya in the Shati refugee camp, while the journalists were covering the crime of assassination, is a confirmation of the arrogant criminal approach of the enemy, and evidence that they fear the martyr leader Ismail Haneyya alive and as a martyr, according to the statement.
The Islamic Jihad movement, through its spokesperson, Muhammad Al-Haj Musa, said that the assassinations of Al-Ghoul and Al-Rifi are crimes against humanity and a flagrant challenge to all human norms and values.
He added, “The frenzied strikes launched by the Israeli government in all directions are a testament to the state of despair it has reached, as it tries to regain its deterrence after being exposed to the steadfastness of our Palestinian people and the support fronts.”
The targeting of journalists by the Israeli occupation has never been random, but rather a systematic targeting that includes arrest campaigns or direct assassinations, as happened with dozens of journalists during this war, after its most notorious crime last year of the assassination of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al Jazeera correspondent in the West Bank. The journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul also had his share of all forms of targeting; he had previously been arrested by the occupation army during its incursion into the Al-Shifa medical complex in March, and now he has crowned his journey with martyrdom while carrying out his mission.
The Palestinian Journalists Forum said that the Israeli occupation insists on continuing its arrogance and deliberate targeting of journalists, disregarding the international laws, charters and humanitarian norms that affirm the protection of journalists.
The forum mourned the colleagues Ismail Al-Ghoul and Rami Al-Rifi, who continued their media coverage in the city of Gaza despite the immense security risks and the worsening famine, saying, “We share the feelings of sadness and pain with the Al Jazeera family, especially in light of the repeated Israeli targeting of its crews, which previously resulted in the martyrdom of colleagues Samer Abu Daqqa, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, and before them Shireen Abu Akleh, as well as the injury of its correspondent Wael al-Dahdouh, who lost some of his family members, as well as colleague Mu’min Al-Sharafi and colleague Ismail Abu Amar, who lost his leg.”
