As has now become the norm for journalists working in Gaza, Mariam Abu Dagga prepared her will despite being just 33 years old. She left behind two sets of instructions: to her colleagues, do not cry at her funeral; to her 13-year-old son, Ghaith, make her proud.
Despite her instructions, Dagga’s colleagues could not help but weep over her body on Monday. She was killed by Israel, alongside four other journalists, while rushing to check on a colleague struck by Israel in al-Nasser hospital, where she had often reported throughout the war in Gaza.
“Mariam had left us instructions not to cry for her when we bid her farewell. She wanted us to spend time with her body, speak to her and take our fill of her before she left,” said Samaheer Farhan, a 21-year-old freelance journalist and close friend of Dagga.
The 33-year-old photojournalist was an inspiring figure to Farhan and many other journalists in Gaza who admired her relentless reporting, despite the often deeply personal losses she suffered throughout the war.
Her rise to prominence as a journalist began with tragedy. She filmed the death of a protester who was shot during the 2018 Great March of Return in Gaza, where Israeli forces shot protesters marching towards the Gaza border fence, killing more than 220 people and wounding more than 9,200. She later discovered that the protester was her brother.
Dagga continued her work as a journalist during the war in Gaza over the last 22 months, working as a freelancer with the Associated Press and Independent Arabia.
Independent Arabia said that she was the “example of dedication and professional commitment”, and praised her for carrying “her camera into the heart of the field, conveying the suffering of civilians and the voices of victims with rare honesty and courage”.
Her photography and reporting highlighted the humanity of her subjects and focused on the suffering of civilians in Gaza.
Her photo of five-year-old Jamal al-Najjar, who died of malnutrition just weeks earlier, portrayed the child tenderly, his small body wrapped in a shroud and placed gently on bricks so that he did not touch the ground. Another photo showed dozens of men scrambling to get food from an aid truck in southern Gaza, a mess of bodies as they desperately compete for scarce aid.
To her colleagues, she was known also for her kindness and dedication.
“Mariam was kind, gentle and deeply passionate about her work. She had lost her mother and her closest colleague, Abu Anas, yet she never stopped covering the war for even a single day,” Farhan said.
They also described her as having a reputation for fearlessness, reporting from some of the most dangerous areas of Gaza.
Like other members of the Gaza press corps, she knew the danger of being a journalist in the Palestinian territory.
The war in Gaza has been the deadliest period ever for journalists, killing more than 192 Palestinian journalists since it began on 7 October, 2023.
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned Israel’s “broadcasted killing of journalists in Gaza”. Israel’s military, commenting on the killing of the five journalists on Monday, said that it “does not target journalists as such”.
Dagga had not seen her son in a year-and-a-half, after he had been evacuated to the UAE with his father.
“She longed to see and embrace her son again. Mariam died with that dream still unfulfilled, to hold her child once more,” Farhan said.
To her son Ghaith, Dagga left behind her wishes that he always grow up to fulfil his dreams.
“I want you to make me proud to become successful and excel, to prove yourself and to grow into a great businessman, my dear,” she wrote in a letter to her son. “When you grow up, get married and have a daughter, name her Mariam after me. You are my love, my heart, my support, my soul and my son whom I am proud of.”
