Hossam Shabat

Hossam Shabat was a 23-year-old Palestinian journalist, a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher in northern Gaza who also filed for Drop Site News. He was a 21-year-old college student when the war began, and spent the next eighteen months reporting from Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, and Jabalia — sleeping in schools, tents, and on pavements, and using his movements and connections to bring humanitarian aid to people who could not otherwise reach it. His family’s restaurant was destroyed and he lost thirty relatives during the war. In October 2024, the Israeli military publicly accused him and five other Al Jazeera journalists of being Hamas operatives; RSF said the dossier severely lacked proof and in no way granted a licence to kill. He had been wounded in an earlier attack but kept reporting, and pre-wrote a farewell message asking readers not to let the world look away from Gaza. On 24 March 2025, an Israeli drone struck his car near the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia.