Gaza Photojournalist Fatima Hassouna Killed in Airstrike Days Before Wedding

 Fatima Hassouna, a 25-year-old photojournalist from Gaza, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday that struck her home in northern Gaza, claiming the lives of ten family members, including her pregnant sister. The attack occurred just days before Hassouna’s wedding and shortly after the announcement that a documentary featuring her life would premiere at a French independent film festival running parallel to Cannes.

Hassouna, who spent the past 18 months documenting the harrowing realities of war in Gaza—including airstrikes, the destruction of her home, repeated displacement, and the deaths of 11 family members—expressed a resolute desire for her legacy to endure. “If I die, I want a loud death,” she wrote on social media. “I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”

The Israeli military described the strike as a targeted operation against a Hamas member allegedly involved in attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. However, concerns have been raised that Hassouna may have been targeted for her widely followed work as a photojournalist and her recent prominence in the documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, directed by Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi. The film, which captures Gaza’s ordeal through video conversations between Hassouna and Farsi, portrays Hassouna as “fiery and full of life.” Farsi, who lives in exile in France, told Deadline, “She was such a light, so talented… I filmed her laughs, her tears, her hopes and her depression.”

Farsi revealed she had spoken to Hassouna hours before the strike to share news of the film’s Cannes selection and extend an invitation. “I lived in fear for her life, but I told myself I had no right to fear for her, if she herself was not afraid,” Farsi said. “I clung to her strength, to her unwavering faith.”

Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history, with over 170 media workers killed since 2023, according to conservative estimates, and some reports citing as many as 206. The war, intensified by Israel’s bombardment following the October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, has claimed over 51,000 lives, predominantly women and children, per Gaza’s health ministry. Recent airstrikes, following the collapse of a ceasefire with Hamas in March, have killed at least 30 people in a single day.

Hassouna’s death has elicited profound grief and outrage among colleagues. Anas al-Shareef, an Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza, said, “She documented massacres through her lens, amid bombardment and gunfire, capturing the people’s pain and screams in her photographs.” Miqdad Jameel, another Gaza-based journalist, urged the public to “see her photos, read her words—witness Gaza’s life, the struggle of its children in war, through her images and her lens.”

The Cannes Acid film festival, where Farsi’s documentary is set to screen in May, issued a statement mourning Hassouna’s loss: “We had watched and programmed a film in which this young woman’s life force seemed like a miracle. Her smile was as magical as her tenacity. Bearing witness, photographing Gaza, distributing food despite the bombs, mourning and hunger.”

In a poignant tribute, Palestinian poet Haidar al-Ghazali shared a poem Hassouna had requested he write for her in the event of her death. Describing her arrival in a gentler afterlife, it reads: “Today’s sun won’t bring harm. The plants in the pots will arrange themselves for a gentle visitor. It will be bright enough to help mothers to dry their laundry quickly, and cool enough for the children to play all day. Today’s sun will not be harsh on anyone.”

Hassouna’s work and spirit continue to resonate, a testament to her unyielding commitment to documenting Gaza’s story amid unimaginable loss.