'We'll Come for You Next': Israel Threatened to Kill Teen Journalist in Gaza—Then Did

"Western journalists and editors should hang their heads in shame for their outrageous silence in the face of these crimes," said one professor.
Brett Wilkins, Oct 07, 2024

Journalists around the world expressed outrage Monday over the Israeli military's killing of a teenage Palestinian reporter who continued showing the world the destruction of Gaza despite threats to his life—and at the Western media's silence on the story.

Hassan Hamad, 19, whose work appeared on Al Jazeera and other outlets, was killed Sunday in an Israeli drone strike on his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, The Palestine Chronicle reported. The bombing followed multiple text messages warning Hamad to stop recording images of Israel's assault on Gaza, which has killed or injured nearly 150,000 Palestinians and for which the close U.S. ally is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Palestinian journalist Maha Hussaini posted a photo of one threatening WhatsApp message sent to Hamad. It read, "Listen, if you continue spreading lies about Israel, we'll come for you next and turn your family into... This is your last warning."

Hussaini said that Hamad also received "several calls from an Israeli officer ordering him to stop filming in Gaza."

"He didn't comply," she wrote. "He was killed today."


A colleague of Hamad's wrote on the slain journalist's X account:

With great sadness and pain, I mourn the journalist Hassan Hamad... Hamad, the journalist who is not yet 20 years old, resisted for a whole year in his own special way. He resisted when he was away from his family so that they would not be targeted. He resisted when he was suffering to find an internet signal and would sit for an hour or two on the roof of the house to send videos that reach you in seconds. Yesterday, since 10:00, he was moving between the bombed areas and returning to search for an internet signal, then returning to cover the places of the remains, suffering from an injury he sustained in his leg. Nevertheless, he completed filming. At 6:00 am, he called me to send me the last video. After a call that did not exceed a few seconds, he was saying, "Hey, hey, it's done," and he hung up. This is a feeling that no human being can bear. Hassan also resisted the occupation and left a mark and left a message that we will complete after him.
Journalists and others posted graphic video footage of pieces of Hamad's remains being collected and placed in a shoebox.

"I will never forget the silence of the media industry about this," Al Jazeera executive producer Laila Al-Arian wrote in a social media post containing the video.

Thomson Reuters Foundation deputy editor-in-chief Barry Malone responded to Hassan's killing by asking, "If you're a journalist and you're not speaking out in solidarity... why?"

Anthropology professor Jason Hickel said that "we can never unsee the images of journalist Hassan Hamad's remains, after he was assassinated by Israeli forces."

"Western journalists and editors should hang their heads in shame for their outrageous silence in the face of these crimes," he added.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says that "at least 128 journalists and media workers, all but five of them Palestinian, have been killed—more journalists than have died in the course of any year since CPJ began documenting journalist killings in 1992."

"All of the killings, except two Israeli journalists killed in the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, were carried out by Israeli forces," the group added. "CPJ has found that at least five journalists were specifically targeted by Israel for their work."

Gaza's Government Media Office (GMO) said Sunday that 175 media workers have been killed in the embattled enclave over the past year.

The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has filed multiple complaints at the International Criminal Court—whose chief prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders—alleging "war crimes against journalists in Gaza." ...

Israel is murdering innocent people with impunity.

Israeli Jews rejoice in the deaths of women and children murdered by brave freedom-loving, democratic Israeli Jews.

One Year On With Norman Finkelstein & Naftali Bennett
 
Oct 8, 2024 
One year ago today, Hamas terrorists burst through the barriers walling off Israel from Gaza and massacred more than 1,100 innocent people, taking 250 more as hostages. The sheer scale of the atrocity, and the animalistic barbarism of the killers, shocked the world.

It was just the latest in a conflict spanning decades -  and still, Israelis and Palestinians continue to live side-by-side no nearer to peace. What will happen next?

Piers Morgan is joined by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett before hosting a debate between political scientist and activist, Norman Finkelstein, Egyptian journalist Rahma Zein, Israeli-American commentator Emily Shrader and former British Army Officer and board member of Friends of Israel Initiative, Colonel Richard Kemp.

01:00- Introduction
03:39 - Bennett on the path Israel has taken since Oct 7th attacks
05:22 - What kind of Gaza and Lebanon are we left with?
08:40- “If we leave Hamas as it is, they will just regrow their tentacles”
11:20 - “Israel is doing the hard tough work on behalf of the free world”
15:34 - Zein responds to Bennett’: “You will have more 7 Octobers to come”
17:53 - Colonel Kemp: “Hamas turned Gaza into a military base"
21:54 - “Zionism is working on a press release”
23:33 - Schrader counters Zein on Palestinians being displaced
25:16 - Finkelstein: “The people of Gaza were suffering a genocide”
37:05 - “Do you expect people to have their land taken and do nothing?”
47:11 - "Israel’s favourite cheerleader with pompoms"
49:35 - “There’s IDF soldiers on TikTok showcasing their war crimes”
54:05 - Last word from Schrader

Norman Gary Finkelstein (/ˈfɪŋkəlstiːn/ FING-kəl-steen; born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist and activist. His primary fields of research are the politics of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Finkelstein was born in New York City to Jewish Holocaust-survivor parents. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007. In 2006, the department and college committees at DePaul University voted to grant Finkelstein tenure. For undisclosed reasons the university administration did not tenure him, and he announced his resignation after coming to a settlement with the university.[1][2]

Finkelstein rose to prominence in 2000 after publishing The Holocaust Industry, a book in which he writes that the memory of the Holocaust is exploited as an ideological weapon to provide Israel a degree of immunity from criticism.[3] He is a critic of Israeli policy and its governing class. The Israeli government barred him from entry to the country for ten years in 2008.[4] Finkelstein has called Israel the "Jewish supremacist state", and views it as committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people.[5] Through personal accounts in one of his books, he compares the plight of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation with the horrors of the Nazis.[6] Finkelstein's most recent book on Palestine and Israel, published in 2018, is Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom.

Bobby. wrote on Oct 8^th, 2024 at 1:39pm:


Because they are trying to get rid of ALL palestinians under the guise of "fighting the terrorist enemy".

Armchair_Politician wrote on Oct 8^th, 2024 at 2:07pm:


Armchair politician is an enabler and supporter of mass murder and genocide.

Israeli Jews are murdering Palestinians, murdering Judaism, and murdering Zionism.

Decent Jews will leave Palestine and the Palestinians will be free from the river to the sea.

The ICJ has already labeled Israel is a criminal state.

The ICJ will shortly judge Israel guilty of genocide. Israeli Jews will be unable to travel globally.