National Press Club’s Press Freedom Award Goes to Wael al-Dahdouh for Gaza Coverage

By Democracy Now

HAVANA TIMES – The US National Press Club has handed its top award for press freedom to Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, for continuing to report on Israel’s assault on the besieged territory despite enduring “unspeakable personal tragedies.”

Just weeks into the war, al-Dahdouh was live on air when he was informed his wife, 7-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Another of al-Dahdouh’s children, Hamza al-Dahdouh, who was also a journalist and cameraperson for Al Jazeera, was killed in a separate Israeli attack early in January.

Earlier this year, al-Dahdouh was evacuated from Gaza to receive medical care in Qatar for injuries he suffered while covering an Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis. At the time, al-Dahdouh’s cameraperson, Samer Abudaqa, was left to bleed to death as Israeli forces blocked ambulances from reaching the scene for several hours. Al-Dahdouh is now living in Germany.

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