Some of the main challenges involve displacement during the war without our professional equipment; lack of electricity since the first week of Israeli attacks, Shrouq tells New Magzine, adding that her greatest wish is for the war to stop and for aid and medical equipment to enter the Gaza Strip
Where were you at the start of the war?
Yes, my husband, Roshid Sarraj, my daughter and I left on October 2nd for a professional two-month tour of the region. My husband was a film maker, journalist and the co-founder of Ain Media, a production company. We were also planning to perform Umrah in Mecca. We returned on October 8th, motivated by our commitment to our work and our people.
Can you tell us about your family‘s background: is it autochtone to Gaza or displaced from 1948 or thereafter?
My family was displaced from Yibna close to Ramllah city in 1948. So we are a displaced persons family. However, my husband‘s family can be traced back to Gaza city several generations. My father-in-law, Yahya al-Sarraj, is the Mayor of Gaza city.
Your husband was the Director of Ain Media in Gaza city. After he was killed early on in the war, you took over Ain Media. What are your main challenges?
Some of the main challenges include being displaced during the war without our professional equipment; lacking electricity since the first week of Israel‘s attacks. Alternatives for charging our devices is the solar panel system which is neither easily available nor affordable or places with generators which run on fuel, but fuel is also scarce. That is why press tents have been set-up within hospital premises where journalist get access to internet and power. I was displaced to the south of Gaza before the January 2025 cease fire. I would walk for two hours to the Kuwait Specialized Hospital, because there are barely any vehicles running, while donkey pulled cart rides are so slow that going on foot is more efficient. So this is how we manage to upload materials and connect to the outside world. A significant challenge of another nature is losing one‘s team: Ibrahim Lafi, our videographer, was killed by the Izraeli Defense Forces on October 7th as he was filming the border area between Gaza and Israel; another colleague, Haitham Abdelwahed, is either kidnapped by the Israeli army or under the rubble, we do not know; then Roshdi, my husband was killed; Mahmoud, another videographer, was killed during the January 2025 ceasefire. Their loss leaves a great professional burden on me and rest of the team having to take on their work, I only have two hands, not ten. In addition, being displaced, sharing a small room with 15 other people made it difficult for me to focus on my work because of the many children. I would walk around looking to connect, to find out whether more assignments came from clients. These are all the technical challenges. Then there is hunger, it is not easy to be hungry while walking long distances, carrying equipment, and be focused on one‘s work. But the greatest challenge is the insecurity, that one could be killed at any moment. Israel has been intentionally and systematically targeting journalists since the start of the war, 220 have been killed so far according to the Gaza Media office. This targeting extends to the journalists‘ family members, so you fear for your family members. We carry a great responsibility because Israel does not allow foreign journalists to entre Gaza.
Do you report for any foreign media outlets, if so, which ones? What has the experience been?
Yes, I work for several foreign media outlets, among which France 24, ABC, Arte, Swiss TV and get requests for interviews by outlets such as Al Jazeera and Democracy Now. It has been a good experience, it is relieving to know that foreign outlets are featuring our story, our suffering, that they are being screened around the world.
Is there still a media desk at the Al Aqsa hospital that provides internet service for reporters?
Yes, there is, but I am no longer there. During the January ceasefire, in mid-February, I moved back to Gaza city. I lost my home, all my siblings, who live in different locations, lost their homes. I am now renting a house in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, I wanted to feel close to where my home was standing, close to where my husband was killed, close to where I spent the happiest years of my life. At one points my family and I were displaced to Deir al-Balah in two tents, one for women, the other for men. It was hell on earth. At the beginning of the war, everyone was lost. Since the Nakba of 1948, we haven‘t lived a catastrophy of this kind. Nobody expected we would end up in tents that protect neither from the summer heat nor the winter cold -this is where most people live now. There was an evacuation order by the IDF recently, but I refused to leave my neighborhood.
What is your response to Israel specifically targeting and killing Palestinian journalists claiming they are members of Hamas?
If they were Hamas, they would be carrying guns and be in a hideout, rather than be highly visible wearing press vests, carrying media equipment and reporting. The justification for every crime is: „They are Hamas.“
Is there reliable data on the number of Palestinian journalists specifically targeted and killed by the IDF since October 2023, not including those that may have died in general airstrikes?
Yes, the Committee for the Pzrotection of Journalists investigates every individual case and reports on the numbers. By the end of May it has identified at least 17 journalists and two media workers who were directly targeted by Israeli forces.
In view of journalists being specifically targeted, do you feel threatened when you wear your Press signage? Have you thought about not wearing it?
I do not like wearing the Press vest, it makes me a target. People on the streets, educated or not, are recognizing that journalists are a target, hence they are afraid of us. I can sometimes hear around me: „Don‘t go close to her“, an old woman once exclaimed: „Go home, stop doing this work!“ International Humanitarian Law and other instruments protect journalists in war zones which is the purpose of the vest, but it is useless so I seldom wear it, I could be hit by a sniper with or without it.
Who takes care of your daughter while you are out in the field reporting?
Living under a genocide has changed our circumstances, we now live in groups, I live with my siblings who also have children, they have been unable to continue working, my daughter stays with them. While out reporting, I live with a high level of anxiety concerned there may be a strike at the house or that I may be killed, my daughter does not deserve to have both her parents killed. Sometimes I think this world does not deserve our forgiveness…we are being massacred, no one has done anything to stop this genocide.
That Hamas has been using civilian infrastructure to store weapons and base its military operations appears to be a fact. It is a fact that Israel has violated the rules of war as set out in the Geneva conventions, among which the principles of distinction; of the prohibition to target civilians and civilian infrastructure, unless these are used for military purposes, when attacks must not cause excessive harm to civilians; of proportionality and indiscriminate targeting. To what degree has Hamas militarized civilian facilities in Gaza? Can Israel justify, as it is trying to do, its tremendous destruction of hospitals, universities, schools, cemeteries, religious structures, museums, sanitary facilities and displaced persons‘ tent camps because of the extent of the militarization of civilian facilities?
I cannot give you a proper answer to this question, because I am not an expert. What I can tell you is that we do not see Hamas, they are underground or in a tent, or elsewhere. The IDF is capable of precise targeting, but no, they will go ahead killing hundreds while chasing one Hamas member. What can be observed is that Hamas stays in areas under IDF evacuation orders, from where they fight on—we see this when Hamas publishes videos of attacking Israeli soldiers. There is simply no logic in assuming that the entire two million plus population of Gaza are all Hamas. E.g. I am not Hamas, I am not pro-Hamas or any other party, I am independent. The case was the same with my husband. There are thousands more like us. Israel is wagging war without red-lines, claiming the presence of Hamas in every corner is a justification to pursue the genocide. Israel is issuing ever more evacuation orders covering increasingly more areas, again displacing hundreds of thousands, while narrowing the space to which the displaced could move. We are living unbearable, brutal chaos.
Based on what you are seeing and hearing on the ground, do you think Israel will take over most of Gaza as it claims it will and is there any possibility that Israel will force the transfer of Palestinians to third countries?
Nobody knows this. I love this land, I belong to this land, even now as it has become a desert of rubble where it is unendurable to live. I had earlier opportunities to leave, but did not. I couldn’t be abroad, constantly traumatized thinking about the fate of my beloved ones. I can‘t wait for war to end, for the borders to open, for aid to come in, for rebuilding to take place, I am sure it will be rebuilt to be better than before. On the other hand, the future…I don‘t know, because I do not know if I will be alive in the next two minutes. I do not know if I will stay or leave, the world is certainly not waiting to welcome us. What I do know is that I want the killing to stop and I want food and medical supplies to enter, we are starving and dying of treatable injuries and illnesses.
Should there be a cease-fire, release of hostages, the withdrawal of the IDF and Hamas, do you think a permanent peace between Israel and Palestine would be possible?
The occupation must stop, without which there is no solution. Israel violated the January 2025 cease-fire. There is now talk about yet another cease-fire, can we trust Israel? Can I trust my occupier who deprived me of some of the closest people in my life and because of whom my daughter will not have celebrated not even one birthday with both her parents and will not be able to remember her father‘s face because she was eleven months old when he was killed?