Israel assassinated a photojournalist in Gaza in an airstrike targeting her family’s home on Wednesday, the day after it was announced that a documentary she appears in would premier in Cannes next month.
Her name was Fatima Hassouna. Nine members of her family were also reportedly killed in the bombing. She was going to get married in a few days.
The documentary is titled Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, and it’s about Israel’s crimes in Gaza.
In an Instagram post from August of last year, Hassouna wrote the following:
“If I die, I want a loud death. I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group; I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”
Hassouna said she viewed her camera as a weapon to change the world and defend her family, making the following statements in a video shared by Middle East Eye:
“As Fatima, I believe that the image and the camera are weapons. So I consider my camera to be my rifle. So many times, in so many situations, I tell my friends, Come and see, it’s not bullets that we load into a rifle. Okay, I’m going to put a memory card into the camera. This is the camera’s bullet, the memory card. It changes the world and defends me. It shows the world what is happening to me and what’s happening to others. So I used to consider this my weapon, that I defend myself with it. And so that my family won’t be forgotten. And so I can document people’s stories, so that my family’s stories too don’t just vanish into thin air.”
Israel saw Hassouna’s camera as a weapon too, apparently.
As Ryan Grim observed on Twitter:
“For this to have been a deliberate act — which it plainly was — consider what that means. A person within the IDF saw the news that Fatma’s film was accepted into Cannes. He/she/they then proposed assassinating her. Other people reviewed the suggestion and approved it. Then other people carried it out.”
Israel has been murdering a record-shattering number of journalists in Gaza while simultaneously blocking any foreign press from accessing the enclave because Israel views journalists as its enemy. And Israel views journalists as its enemy because Israel is the enemy of truth.
Israel and its western backers understand that truth and support for Israel are mutually exclusive. Those who support Israel are not interested in the truth, and those who are interested in the truth don’t support Israel.
That’s why the light of journalism is being aggressively snuffed out in Gaza while Israel massively increases its propaganda budget to sway public opinion.
It’s why journalists like Fatima Hassouna are being assassinated while the western propaganda services known as the mainstream press commit journalistic malpractice to hide the truth of Israel’s crimes.
It’s why western journalists are banned from Gaza while western institutions are silencing, deporting, firing and marginalizing those who speak out about Israel’s criminality.
Israel and truth cannot coexist. Israel’s enemies know this, and Israel knows this. That’s why Israel’s primary weapons are bombs, bullets, propaganda, censorship, and obstruction, while the main weapon of Israel’s enemies is the camera.
Fatima Hassouna’s death has indeed been heard. All these loud noises are snapping more and more eyes open from their slumber.
