VOICES FROM GAZA Shuruk al-Alija: We are being killed live on television, and the world is deaf to our suffering.

**Interviewed by: Jelena L. Petković**

Journalism in Gaza is under attack, deliberately starved and killed.

Faced with hunger, thirst, and a food black market that is inhumane and rampant, while caring for her three-year-old daughter, the recipient of the prestigious International Press Freedom Award (IPFA) for 2024, awarded by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), goes out into the field every day. And works.

“I feel as if we are going through many phases of killing,” al-Alija emphasizes and underscores:

“No one here can protect themselves.”

The young journalist and her daughter are displaced persons in Gaza, a city with a rich history that was full of life until two years ago. Today, bodies are counted in it. Her home, as well as the entire Gaza Strip, has turned into ruins, debris, and wreckage:

“Our real home is completely destroyed; there is nothing left. There aren’t even any ruins of our house.”

The United Nations (UN) declared on Friday that there is hunger in Gaza, particularly emphasizing the city of Gaza.

Estimating that half a million people are in catastrophic condition, they noted that by the end of September, this number would rise to 640,000.

“Searching for food is an endeavor. Prices are not affordable at all, not even at this moment. And I say this from the perspective of an employed mother with a source of income. I cannot imagine how people, which is the majority of the population in Gaza who have lost their jobs due to genocide, manage to provide food,” Al-Alija explains.

In horrific despair and poverty, people go to distribution points to survive. That journey is, she notes, “like a deadly trap.”

**Brutal "Hunger Games"**

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that diseases and hunger will only grow if all obstacles to delivering aid imposed by Israel in the Gaza Strip are not removed.

Shuruk al-Alija believes that the only effective way for food trucks to move peacefully and safely to the warehouses of non-governmental organizations is to allow safe passage.

“Otherwise, nothing works,” she asserts and explains:

“Unfortunately, the Israeli army does not allow safe passage for food into the warehouses. Trucks are robbed by gangs of thieves, which are mostly controlled by the Israeli army. Trucks are looted before they even enter the city. And that means that these gangs of thieves control the market. They sell everything they have stolen at exorbitantly high prices.”

The locations of GHF, an American food distribution company, are highlighted as nothing more than a deadly trap.

“We have seen how many casualties there are every day, both related to the trucks and in the distribution of aid.”

Airborne food distribution, particularly, is not safe as the cargo falls on people's heads.

“If it doesn’t fall on heads, it falls on makeshift tents. It destroys what people have ensured for days. Last week, a child was killed. The cargo from the plane fell on his head. This is because food was not safely transported to the warehouses, as the army does not allow it. Groups volunteer to secure trucks. Unfortunately, the army constantly targets them with airstrikes,” says al-Alija, emphasizing:

“The army wants this chaotic situation. They want to hunt people, to play the hunger games.”

**Suffering**

Life in Gaza, which does not separate the fates of journalists from all other civilians, is summed up by our interlocutor in one word – suffering.

“We are always suffering,” she emphasizes and adds:

“When we talk about hunger, a job that used to take me three hours now takes me six. Because I am not fully concentrated. The people I interview are not fully concentrated. These are people functioning with minimal energy due to hunger and also because of the heat. It’s hellishly hot here these days. This is the peak of summer. We do not have those luxury machines like fans, air conditioners, and the like. That’s because we don’t have electricity.”

She reminds that “there has been no electricity since the first week of this genocide.”

“The problem is charging devices. I have to go to places that have solar panel systems or generators or similar, like hospitals.”

When Shuruk and her fellow journalists go to upload their materials, they become targets of Israeli attacks.

On Monday morning, five journalists were killed in an Israeli attack on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. The attack on the hospital occurred shortly after 10 AM local time on Monday when a Reuters cameraman was killed in the bombing of the hospital's balcony.

“Nine minutes later, while a group of rescuers and other journalists were providing assistance to the victims, the Israeli army struck again. This tactic is known as a ‘double tap,’” CNN highlighted.

In that attack, Shuruk al-Alija lost a close friend.

Condemning the attack, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for “ongoing unlawful attacks on the media.”

“The Israeli killing of journalists live in Gaza continues while the world watches and does not take decisive action regarding the most horrifying attacks that the media has ever faced in modern history,” emphasized CPJ’s regional director, Sara Kudah.

**No Space to Mourn**

Journalistic fields have never recorded such a level of danger. In addition to being life-threatening, moving around is difficult and complicated, and due to fuel shortages, it is also unhealthily expensive.

“I’m literally throwing money away on fuel. I can’t use regular transport because it’s not safe. When you go to film, you waste time waiting for vehicles. Then you wait until they fill up with passengers, and you may not even make it to your destination. My car runs on gasoline, and gasoline is twice as expensive as diesel. A liter of gasoline before the genocide was $2. Now it’s $150, which is madness, I know. Diesel is about $75 or $80 per liter,” our interlocutor recalls.

She needs the car to take her daughter when she goes to work.

“I don’t want to expose her to risk because I don’t know anyone. I am very traumatized regarding her safety and do not take her around. I just drive her to her grandparents, come back for her, and we go home, which is not actually our home. It’s the place where we are displaced.”

Safety is, in every sense, an unattainable luxury.

“How the hell can I protect myself? No one here can protect themselves. Whether you are a journalist or a civilian, there’s no way to protect yourself. There are no safe places. Even foreigners have been targeted. There are no red lines here, and the risk is felt everywhere. We are all in danger.”

If they could manage to protect themselves, she emphasizes, it would mean that the world would not see all the suffering in the media that comes only from the lens and pen of Palestinian journalists.

“In this, we are all equal. Here, we are all targets. Journalists even more so due to the systematic killing of journalists. So far, 238 journalists have been killed. They lost their lives to show the world the truth that the world is fleeing from and does not want to confront.”

Under bombs, in fear, and with unspeakable tension, while every day is a search for water, food, to finish the job, the only goal is to survive:

“We rely on a survival regime – just to survive that day. You feel like you are just a figure, here, in these circumstances. There’s no way, no room for relief, not even privacy. There is no privacy to mourn everything you have lost.”

**Ethically Bound**

“What motivates me to do this, in such circumstances, is that I believe if you have skills, a platform, followers – you must. I’m not just talking about my suffering. I’m talking about the suffering of my people, my relatives, my family, my friends, and all these people. And I am one of them. I am a story. The circumstances here are unbearable, but you feel that you are ethically bound to your people, your country, to do whatever you can to raise awareness,” emphasizes Shuruk al-Alija.

The eyes of journalists witness the bloodiest and most terrifying scenes in Gaza. There is no privilege to think about health, mental trauma, and burden:

“Sometimes I feel like I’m out of energy, that I don’t want to do anything. Suddenly, I feel like I’m mentally broken. Health-wise, I’m not well anymore. I’m tired most of the time; I can’t concentrate. Every day we add more psychological aspects; we are suffocating our feelings more and more. We are all tightening up, repressing feelings, and waiting for the moment when we all will burst. We will all mourn in the right way, in a time of peace.”

“We are literally forced to endure these circumstances,” Shuruk al-Alija particularly emphasizes:

“We never chose this, and we do not want to deal with it anymore. We are forced to endure this brutality, these unbearable conditions because we have no chances, nor choices.”

From the war, from Gaza, young faces report, just like our interlocutor. Many of them are freelancers. And in these conditions of hunger and misery, they experience yet another level of exploitation. When asked if journalists are fairly paid for their work, our interlocutor says:

“No. It actually depends on the organization you work with. But unfortunately, organizations, most of them, do not consider how expensive it is, what the cost of living is here, that everything costs 10 times more than usual prices. That’s the minimum, for sure. And fuel is simply incredibly expensive. Transportation and all that. Sometimes I feel like they don’t take this into account in terms of payment. I can say that some are fairly paid, but most are not.”

Shuruk Al-Alija leads Ain Media. She took over this job after her husband, Roshdi Sarraj, was killed while trying to protect her and their daughter.

“On the morning of October 22, 2023, while the family was sitting down for breakfast, shrapnel from an Israeli rocket attack on a nearby house killed Sarraj and injured al-Alija and their baby,” CPJ reminds.

Ain Media has also suffered other losses. Co-founder Yaser Murtaja was killed, as well as photographer Ibrahim. Two more editorial members are missing.

Shuruk is still in the field today.