'If You're Reading This, It Means I Have Been Killed': Israeli Forces Massacre Two More Journalists

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“If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed—most likely targeted—by the Israeli occupation forces,” wrote Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat before he was assassinated in Gaza on March 24. 

Israeli military forces reportedly launched a targeted strike on Shabat, a contributor to Drop Site News and a reporter for Al Jazeera Mubasher. He was driving his vehicle in Beit Lahia.

The same day the Israeli military also killed Palestinian journalist Mohammad Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today. They reportedly bombed Mansour’s house in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Israeli military forces, backed by the United States, have killed at least 217 journalists and media workers since it started bombing Gaza on October 7, 2023. 

Shabbat’s team shared the journalist’s final message. “When this all began, I was only 21 years old—a college student with dreams like anyone else. For [the] past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury.”

“I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents—anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side.”

“By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist,” Shabat added. “I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest—something I haven’t known in the past 18 months. I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause. I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honor of my life to die defending it and serving its people.”

On October 23, 2024, Shabat was one of six journalists falsely and maliciously labeled a “Hamas and Islamic Jihad Terrorist” by the Israeli government. At the time, Shabat responded, “This blatant and belligerent attempt to transform us, the last witnesses in the north, into killable targets is an assassination threat and obvious attempt to preemptively justify our murder.”

Drop Site News put out a statement on Shabat’s death that paid tribute to his courage as a reporter and mentioned that he had filed a story hours before Israel killed him. 

“Hossam filed a story for Drop Site about Israel’s resumption of its scorched earth bombing of Gaza last week that killed over 400 people, including nearly 200 children in a matter of hours. He was eager to publish. 'I want to share the text urgently,’ he wrote in Arabic,” Drop Site News shared. “He always wanted to get the story out—to report what was happening on the ground.”

Mansour’s father was recorded as he wept over his son’s dead body. “Get up and report the news,” his father begged. “Please, speak.” Then he added, “I wish I were the journalist instead of you.” 

“This horrific war crime aims to erase the truth and terrorize all those who carry the message of free speech,” the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) stated. “This crime is neither an isolated incident nor an exception; rather, it is part of a systematic policy pursued by the occupation to eliminate Palestinian journalists, who have become direct targets of Israel’s killing machine simply because they are fulfilling their duty of reporting the truth. 

Both PJS and Drop Site News condemned the silence and complicity of the world, including media organizations, as massacres of journalists continue to occur in Gaza. 

Hours after the deaths of Shabat and Mansour, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal. He recently won an Academy Award as a co-director of the film “No Other Land.” 

Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham posted, “A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co-director of our film No Other Land. They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called and took him. No sign of him since.” (The Dissenter previously reviewed the film.)

Asked about the deaths of Shabat and Mansour, former Fox News commentator and State Department spokesperson said everything that is happening is the fault of Hamas and its choices to “drag that region down.” Bruce said, “We stand by Israel,” and refused to say whether she believed the targeted killing of journalists was a war crime. 

The U.S. government has not only stood by as Israel kills journalists, but it also has facilitated those deaths by providing tens of billions of dollars in arms shipments. With these weapons, the Israeli military has particularly gone after Al Jazeera and its journalists. The news network was shut down in Israel and the West Bank.

Al Jazeera listed out the correspondents and photographers, who died before these latest attacks:

July 31, 2024 – Al Jazeera journalists Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi were killed while reporting in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.

December 15, 2024 – Photojournalist Ahmad Baker Al-Louh was killed by the Israeli forces in an air strike on a Palestinian Civil Defence post in the market area of Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

January 7, 2024 – Hamza Dahdouh, a journalist and the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, was killed by an Israeli attack in the western part of Khan Younis, Gaza.

December 14, 2023 – Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abudaqa was killed while reporting at Farhana school in Khan Younis. His colleague Wael Dahdouh, who lost his wife, son, daughter and grandson in a previous Israeli bombing, was wounded.

Drop Site News contended, “In a just world, those who helped to kill Hossam—and all of our Palestinian colleagues—would be brought to justice and tried for their crimes. We call on all journalists to raise their voices to demand an end to the killing of our Palestinian colleagues who have risked, and often given, their lives so that the truth itself can live.”

Shabat concluded his final message from northern Gaza with these words: “I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.”