The Al Jazeera reporter, along with Palestine Today’s Mohammad Mansour, were both killed Monday, adding to the long list of journalists killed by Israel while they covered its genocide in Gaza.
Al Jazeera reporter Hossam Shabat on March 1. (Hossam Shabat/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
Colleagues of Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat on Monday posted the Palestinian reporter’s own words on social media after he was killed in what was reportedly a targeted attack by U.S.-backed Israeli forces in northern Gaza.
“If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed — most likely targeted — by the Israeli occupation forces,” said Shabat in the statement before his death.
“When this all began, I was only 21 years old — a college student with dreams like anyone else. For past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury.”
Shabat had been reporting for Al Jazeera Mubasher [TV channel] on the Israeli assault on Gaza that began in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, documenting the destruction of northern Gaza and the impact of Israel’s blockade and attacks on the people there.
Witnesses told Al Jazeera that Shabat’s car had been targeted in Beit Lahiya, and his colleague at the network, Tareq Abu Azzoum, reported the Israeli forces carried out the strike without “any prior warning.”
Also on Monday, an Israeli airstrike killed Palestine Today journalist Mohammad Mansour, as well as his wife and son. They were killed in their home in Khan Younis, Abu Azzoum reported.
Mansour and Shabat’s deaths bring the number of journalists who have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza to 208, according to Middle East Eye.
British journalist Owen Jones said Shabat’s work “was instrumental in understanding the depravity of Israel’s genocide. That’s why Israel killed him.”
The Israeli state just murdered Palestinian journalist @HossamShabat.
One of the finest journalists on earth, his courageous work was instrumental in understanding the depravity of Israel’s genocide.
That’s why Israel killed him.
Never forget Hossam Shabat pic.twitter.com/WS5ShdACyH
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) March 24, 2025
The Committee to Protect Journalists called for an independent investigation into whether Shabat and Mansour were deliberately targeted.
“The deliberate and targeted killing of a journalist, of a civilian, is a war crime,” Jodie Ginsberg, the group’s chief executive, told Al Jazeera.
Drop Site News, where Shabat was a contributing reporter on the bombardment of Gaza, said it “holds Israel and the U.S. responsible for killing Hossam.”
In October 2024, the Israel Defense Forces included Shabat and five other Palestinian reporters on a hit list, according to Drop Site.
“Hossam regularly received death threats by call and text,” said the outlet. “What we have witnessed for nearly a year and a half is the Israeli military engaging in a systematic campaign to kill Palestinian journalists, as well as members of their families.”
Shabat had filed a story for Drop Site just hours before he was killed about “Israel’s resumption of its scorched-earth bombing of Gaza last week that killed over 400 people, including nearly 200 children in a matter of hours.”
As Drop Site published Shabat’s final dispatch, journalist and editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous wrote that he “was one of a handful of reporters who remained in northern Gaza through Israel’s genocidal war.”
“His ability to cover one of the most brutal military campaigns in recent history was almost beyond comprehension,” wrote Kouddous. “He bore witness to untold death and suffering on an almost daily basis for 17 months. He was displaced over 20 times. He was often hungry. He buried many of his journalist colleagues. In November, he was wounded in an Israeli airstrike. I still can’t believe I am referring to him in the past tense. Israel obliterates the present.”
In his final article, Shabat wrote about the attacks on numerous families in northern Gaza as Israel resumed its assault, abandoning a cease-fire that took effect in January:
“Screams filled the air while everyone stood helpless. My tears didn’t stop. The scenes were more than any human being could bear. The ambulances were filled with corpses, their bodies and limbs piled on top and intertwined with one another. We could no longer distinguish between children and men, between the injured and the dead.
At Al-Andalus Hospital the scene was even more painful. The hospital was filled with martyrs. Mothers bid silent farewells to their children. Medical staff worked in horrific conditions, trying to treat the injured with only the most basic means available. It was an impossible situation with massive numbers of dead and wounded being brought in at a terrifying rate.
Israel’s aggression continues. Massacre after massacre, leaving only the screams of mothers in its wake and the dreams of children that have turned to ash. There is no justification for this. Everything is being crushed: the lives of innocent people, their dignity, and their hopes for a better future.”
Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site, posted on social media a video of Shabat talking with a Palestinian girl about her goal of becoming a journalist.
This is who Israel murdered today. Our colleague Hossam Shabat. pic.twitter.com/ylVrpcNrEq
— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) March 24, 2025
Shabat concluded his final message to readers by saying he continued covering the assault on northern Gaza “because I believe in the Palestinian cause.”
“I ask you now: Do not stop speaking about Gaza,” wrote Shabat. “Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.”
Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Well government is the only entity that does not like its monopoly on violence challenged, it is unfortunate that these same genocidal murderers and their lacky supporters could not be swept away with the wave of a hand or a neutron bomb….
even though indeed Israel tries to ‘obliterate the present’, voices from Palestine and the Palestinians will sound, be heard and shared.
Truly horrible. Don’t forget Donald, no friend of truth.The facilitator.
The Free World’s War on Journalism.
Notice how this is a constant across both fronts of the World War. Both nations that are a part of The Free World bomb and attack journalists. Now, try to act surprised.
Back when America was attacking Iraq, there was talk from the lovely people in the Pentagon describing “the Information Battlefield”, and expressing the need of the military to “dominate” this battlefield. So, how does a military dominate a battlefield? Its what we are seeing today in The Free World’s World War, and all the corpses of journalists that are being created. When your military said that they were going to dominate the information battlefield, did you think they were going to write an essay?
The Free World bombs hospitals
The Free World kills journalists for Thought Crimes.
Your tax dollars at work, doing exactly what they said they were doing to do with your money.