“We will not fear their strikes”: Gaza journalists defiant after Israeli attack on media center

Rami Almeghari

The Electronic Intifada

Gaza Strip

18 November 2012

Al-Quds TV cameraman Khader al-Zahhar at the intensive care unit of al-Shifa hospital after he was seriously injured in an Israeli air strike on a media building.

"The rocket hit me directly after it made a hole into the roof,” said Khader al-Zahhar, 20, from his hospital bed in Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital on Sunday.

Al-Zahhar, a cameraman for al-Quds TV, spoke to The Electronic Intifada and other reporters after his right leg was amputated following an Israeli strike on the Shawa and Hussari press building the night before in the al-Rimal quarter of Gaza City.
Al-Zahhar said that just before the strike, “Some of my colleagues and I were having some rest after a long working day during the Israeli escalation. I wanted to sleep for only an hour, as the situation seemed to be getting sort of calm.”
But the calm was illusory. Israel intensified its attacks on Gaza on Saturday night, bringing the death toll to more than 60 persons with hundreds more injured.
In the single bloodiest incident, an Israeli bomb completely destroyed a two story house of the Dallou family in a residential district of Gaza City, killing 11 persons. Among the dead were five women, including one 80-year-old, and four small children, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

Journalists were resting when missiles hit

Smoke rises as an Israeli air strike hits a media center in Gaza, 18 November.
(Majdi Fathi / APA images)

Cameraman al-Zahhar was later reported to have been transferred to an Egyptian hospital for more medical care. His colleagues described the attack on their offices that occurred at about 1:30 in the morning..."