Dying to tell the story

I had a disturbingly enlightening experience on Tuesday, November 12. Along with others, I watched and listened to Shrouq Al Aila, a young journalist, a mother, and widow who was using battery power to talk to us online directly from Gaza, where the little electricity there is often fails. She told us that as she spoke that she could hear explosions from bombs nearby.

In October 2023, Shrouq’s husband, Roshdi Sarraj, also a journalist, was killed by shrapnel from an Israeli missile attack on a neighbouring house in Gaza. After he was hit, it was too dangerous for an ambulance to fetch him, so he and Shrouq walked 15 minutes to a hospital. He died minutes after they arrived. Shrouq continues to work in Ain Media, the independent video production company that they shared.  

Stursberg Lecture

Shrouq was interviewed by Nahlah Ayed, host of CBC Radio’s Ideas program for the annual Peter Stursberg Foreign Correspondent’s Lecture, sponsored by the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. The interview will later be broadcast by the Ideas program.

The combined lecture-interview was titled, Dying to Tell the Story. Shrouq said that 180 journalists, including her husband, have been killed during 13 months of Israeli attacks on Gaza.

For the Carleton event, Shrouq responded to questions from Ayed, and questions from the audience relayed by Ayed. What follows here are excerpts drawn from my written notes. The session, which I followed on YouTube, was recorded and is now available to see.

The Interview

Nahlah Ayed briefly recounted the death of Shrouq’s husband and of her later having to live in a tent for months with her infant daughter and numerous other extended family members. Ayed asked Shrouq what is happening today.

Shrouq: It’s the same news. The same massacres. The same shortages of everything. The same displacement. Since the war started there is little electricity. I had to use a battery today to be sure I could participate in this meeting. This is the everyday challenge. Today, I was filming with foreigners who had clearance. Suddenly everything went crazy, and we had to run for our safety.

Ayed asked for more detail.

Shrouq: When they fire a missile, you can’t see it, but you hear it. It’s like a whisper. You have 15 seconds to think about your entire life. Then you hear it hitting and you see the smoke and you try and maintain your mental health.

For the past two days I have been at a hospital. They have electricity that I can use for livestreaming. What happened? They [Israelis] bombed the hospital. People died and others were injured. The hospital was housing displaced people. They have nowhere else to go.

I tried to film what was happening. It was not my first time, but I was shaking. There was smoke and blood and destruction everywhere. The smell was awful. I could not take a deep breath. It is the same smell as when they killed my husband. I could smell blood, smoke and concrete.

Ayed said it has now been more than 400 days of violence in Gaza, and she asked Shrouq how she is coping.

Shrouq: It’s not just me. It’s everyone. Everything is on hold. Your feelings. Your anger. Your tears. We do not have the luxury of collapse. In a genocide you do not let yourself go. You suppress every feeling that you have inside, or you would break down.

Ayed asked what compelled Shrouq to become a journalist.

Shrouq: Being in a conflict zone, a sense of duty hits you. I speak English. I am asked why I don’t use that [skill] to counter the Israeli propaganda about what is happening in a war zone. I want to document, to contribute to a more accurate understanding, and to provide a voice to the voiceless. I want to foster empathy among the public about the genocide, about the human rights violations.

Ayed asked Shrouq why she continued with the production company after her husband died.

Shrouq:  When the conflict started on October 7, we were outside of Gaza, but we came back on October 8. We decided not to stay in our apartment because it was on the seventh floor and a target for missiles. We stayed at my husband’s family’s home, and he kept on doing coverage. I worked from home because of our daughter.

Roshdi spent his life growing this company. He and his best friend Yaser Murtaja. Yaser was killed by an Israeli sniper in 2019, when he was doing a documentary. Should I go forward or consider the company killed with the two co-founders? It was not easy to continue, but this company was established for good reasons.

Ayed asked Shrouq where she draws the line because it seems her life is in danger every time she goes out to work.

Shrouq: I have two personalities. The journalist and the mom. I thank God for my profession, or I would sink into depression. I spread stories about what is happening in Gaza. I don’t want to lose my life because of my daughter. I was an orphan, but I don’t want my daughter to go through this.

Ayed asked Shrouq if she is exhausted.

Shrouq: Since the war started, journalists are paying the price. Every time a journalist is killed or exiled, we lose a segment of the truth. Journalists are civilians who are supposed to be protected under international law, but 180 have been killed since October 7. We need international journalists to come and cover what is happening here. We are exhausted. It’s almost like one year of livestream slaughter.

Ayed said that Shrouq has been quoted as saying being a journalist “is a sentence for life.” What did she mean?

Shrouq: You cannot separate yourself from the story you are filming. You will never escape your feelings. We are all living in the same circumstances. The mother in a crowded house. The man tortured in jail. That could be us. I can relate to this pain. I am a story as well.

Ayed said that some journalists leave. She asked Shrouq if she has thought of doing that.

Shrouq:I deeply love Gaza. I have traveled, my husband too. He is very skilled. I do not talk of him in the past tense. We have had opportunities to move our business outside of Gaza. But we chose to be a part of the people rebuilding this place. The borders are closed but earlier I had decided not to leave. I feel like I will betray my husband if I leave. I run the company inside Gaza. If you can do something, you do it.

A questioner from the audience asked Shrouq if she allows herself to think of the future.

Shrouq: No. I may not be alive. I think of tomorrow but not beyond that. I cannot think of a future under genocide.  

Press Freedom Award

The Committee to Protect journalists (CPJ) presented Shrouq with its 2024 International Press Freedom Award. In its citation, CPJ said: “Her story is emblematic of the plight of Palestinian women journalists reporting from Gaza who have endured the unthinkable and continue to report the news for the world to see.”

Gideon Levy

Shrouq’s appearance in the Stursberg Lecture focused on her brutal experience covering the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. In the second lecture, on Wednesday, November 13, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy was on the role of Israeli media in shaping the narrative of their nation at war.