They fled south of Gaza as ordained. Then Israel killed them

Forced to escape the city of Gaza under bombing, two Palestinian journalists are among the dozens of dead while seeking security in the south

After Israel intensified the bombing and expulsion orders in the city of Gaza, Palestinian cameraman Sami Dawoud packed his belongings and moved south for security.

He housed himself with his family in a tent in Deir al-Balah, in downtown Gaza, an area considered one of the least dangerous at the hunger-plated Palestinian enclave.

But in less than a week, an Israeli fighter attacked the area. A bomb hit Dawoud’s tent, killing him, his daughter and several other Palestinians.

“Sami was deeply committed to keeping his wife and children safe and as comfortable as possible wherever they were,” her friend and colleague, photographer Yahya Barzaq told Middle East Eye.

“He was extremely protective with his family, mainly because his wife couldn’t stand the fear. He always made a point of ensuring that she felt comfortable,” Barzaq added.

“He always cared deeply about his children, paying attention to his clothes, education, cleaning and creation.”

In mid -August, Israel launched the first phase of a major offensive to take control of the city of Gaza before a total occupation of the track.

This has marked a large climbing in its military strategy, moving from months of air attacks directed to a large -scale land invasion.

In mid -September, the Israeli army further intensified the air attacks. He issued new mass displacement orders to more than one million residents of the city of Gaza and the north of the Gaza Strip, instructing them to flee south.

Under relentless bombings and without any safe refuge in the north, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee.

But many, like Dawoud, were killed in the same places where they had fled, where the bombings were no less severe.

Since August 11, Israel has killed 1,903 Palestinians in downtown and southern Gaza, representing 46% of the total dead in the Gaza range during this period, according to the Gaza -based government’s media office.

‘Unimaginable brutality’

Originally resident of the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of the city of Gaza, Dawoud has been displaced several times since the beginning of the genocide of Israel in Gaza in October 2023.

However, after the ceasefire agreement in January, he returned home. About a month later, he was forced to leave again after Israel violates the agreement, resuming attacks on the blocked enclave.

Initially, Dawoud resisted friends advice, including Barzaq, to ​​escape again.

But one day later, he sent a message in a group chat saying he had to flee with his family under fire and could not take anything from the house.

“We all started laughing and said to him, ‘Were you not acting like a hero in saying it would be?’” Barzaq recalled.

He replied that he had never imagined the level of fear and brutality that he and his family experienced. From that day on, Sami was determined to never expose his family to such danger.

Sami Dawoud was killed with her daughter Ghena in an air strike against her tent in Deri al-Balah
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After fleeing, he asked Barzaq for help to find shelter.

Barzaq told him about a seven -story building in the seriously damaged city of Gaza – half destroyed and the other precariously sloping half – but still housed homeless families who considered him safer than tents.

An apartment remained unoccupied, which Dawoud accepted. He stayed there for three days.

“Then he said to me, ‘Yahya, the building is dangerous. He shakes a lot with each bombing, and the children are terrified,” Barzaq told Mee.

“So he moved to another apartment [no centro da Cidade de Gaza].”

Fleeing death to death

Finally, Dawoud decided to escape from the city of Gaza. When he arrived at the Central Gaza Strip last month, Barzaq contacted once again.

“Help me. I arrived, but I’m on the street,” he sent a message.

Barzaq launched an online public appeal asking if anyone in Deir Al-Balah could host Dawoud and his family, even for one night. But there was no answer.

“That night he practically slept in the open,” said Barzaq.

The next day, after an extensive search, he found an empty terrain where he set up a tent.

He told Barzaq that he was relieved, believing that the area was safe because there were no other people around.

About a week later, an Israeli air strike hit the tent. Dawoud was killed along with his eldest daughter, Ghena. His wife and middle daughter were injured.

Dawoud’s death caused indignation and shock in the journalistic community of Gaza, as his colleagues emphasized that his work had not caused the Israeli army.

“We worked together on an online educational channel whose goal was to turn the school curriculum into digital classes during the coronavirus’ outbreak, when students and teachers had to depend on electronic learning,” said Barzaq.

Sami was a cameraman and video editor. He was very skilled and professional in his work. What set him apart was that he worked in silence, with a very calm temperament. He was a man of moral, faith and composure.

Barzaq Death

A day after talking to Mee on Monday, Barzaq was killed in an Israeli air strike in Deir Al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip.

The attack reached an area near a coffee shop he had visited to post the material he had photographed.

Barzaq had fled from the city of Gaza to Deir Al-Balah just two weeks earlier, according to his friend, photographer Mahmoud Abuhamda.

“He was still riding his tent,” said Abuhamda. “It wasn’t ready yet, but he couldn’t find another place to stay, so he spun on the terrace of a building in Deir al-Balah.”

Like Dawoud, Barzaq was desperately looking for a safe place to house his wife and two children before being killed.

Listening to the news of his death, Abuhamda ran to the Al-Aqsa Hospital morgue to say goodbye to his friend.

“I saw a bloodstain in the back of his head, and the blood was coagulated, so suspected that it was caused by shrapnel,” he said.

This is not the first time he has faced death. Last year, while filming a report to the TRT, a quadcopter flew over the scene and opened fire on it. He then hid in a tent and documented the incident.

Yahya Barzaq was a well-known newborns photographer in the Gaza Strip | X

Barzaq was widely known in Gaza as a photographer of newborns, having led photo sessions for hundreds of babies throughout the Gaza Strip.

In January, he shared a video montage of newborns he had photographed, many of which were killed in Israeli attacks.

“These are children who were photographed in my studio. I witnessed their laughing sweets and their parents’ love for them, and they were killed in the blink of an eye,” he wrote in the caption.

“I want the war to end for everyone in general, and to the children in particular. I can’t stand to witness the suffering of children, their crying, their fear, their screams and their hunger.”

According to Abuhamda, Barzaq had a strong feeling that he would be killed during the war.

“He felt that death was near. He always told me that he wanted the war to end, because he had no guarantee of surviving an air attack or shrapnel. The incident in which he was killed was always present in his mind,” he said.

“He used to talk about the contradictions-how he took pictures of newborns who had just come to life and was now documenting death in Gaza.”

Originally published by Middle East Eye on 10/03/2025

Por Maha Hussainiem Deir al-Balah – Gaza, Palestina ocupada