Gaza Journalist Fadi al-Wahidi Avoided Israel’s “Red” Zone. Israel Shot Him Anyway.

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This investigation, conducted by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, is part of the Gaza Project, a collaboration involving over 40 journalists from 12 organizations coordinated by Forbidden Stories.

The image of Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi lying motionless on the pavement quickly spread among journalists in Gaza. His press vest is visible but it turned out to be useless; he was shot in the neck, just above the flak jacket.

It was October 9, 2024, and al-Wahidi had been reporting on the displacement of Palestinian families in Jabalia in the northern Gaza. The al-Saftawi neighborhood, where he was working, had been designated by the Israeli military as a “yellow” zone, outside of the “red” evacuation area.

In video footage of that day, gunfire erupts. Moments later, al-Wahidi lies on the ground, unmoving. His colleagues are unable to reach him immediately for fear of being shot themselves.

The image of al-Wahidi lying motionless recalled the lifeless body of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian American journalist who was killed by the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in May 2022 — another journalist in a press vest, shot while reporting.

“Fadi, Fadi, Fadi is injured!” Imam Bader, a journalist on the scene that day, shouts in one video, his voice thick with anguish.

“Fadi, do you hear me? Move if you can,” he calls out, crouching behind a white car near where al-Wahidi lay. “Oh God, oh God!”

Islam Bader, a journalist with Al Araby TV, was across the street.

“We felt like the gunfire was right over our heads,” he said. “The bullets didn’t stop. They were chasing us. But in that moment, you can’t look around, you can’t tell what’s happening. I crossed the street, and suddenly I heard the guys shouting, ‘Fadi, Fadi!’ I was trying to make sense of what was going on, and they said Fadi had fallen.”

Six journalists, including al-Wahidi, said in interviews that they were directly targeted despite standing in broad daylight, wearing press vests, and reporting from a “yellow” zone. Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, The Intercept, and their partners geolocated the position of the journalists that day, confirming they were approximately 650 meters outside the evacuation zone. In several videos, the flak jackets are clearly marked “PRESS.”

“We were shot at directly,” al-Wahidi said from his hospital bed in Gaza, before his evacuation from the Strip. “Even now in my ears, the bullets are bouncing off the door next to me, into the walls next to me.”

“We were fully identifiable as journalists,” said Mohammed Shaheen, a journalist for Al Jazeera Mubasher, who was also there that day. “The gunfire was aimed directly at us.”

A video taken by al-Wahidi himself — obtained by ARIJ, The Intercept, and their partners but never posted online — captured the last 16 seconds before he was hit. He’s running, filming in selfie mode, when the screen jolts and the video cuts off.

Al-Wahidi and his colleagues weren’t the only journalists attacked in Jabalia that day. A kilometer way, about half an hour earlier, Mohammed al-Tanani, a cameraman for Al Aqsa TV, was killed in an airstrike. Tamer Lubbad, the channel’s correspondent, was injured in the same attack. They, too, were in the “yellow” zone designated by the Israeli military, according to Lubbad.

“It’s clear to everyone that we are journalists,” Lubbard said, noting that they were wearing press gear. “We were targeted.”

Only three days earlier in Jabalia, 19-year-old journalist Hassan Hamad became the youngest reporter killed by Israeli forces during the war in Gaza.

Unprecedented Toll

The Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, has said the war in Gaza is the deadliest conflict for journalists the organization has ever documented. At least 165 Palestinian journalists have been killed since October 2023, according to the organization. Other groups, like the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, put the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza at above 200. The death toll of the 18-month war now exceeds the number of journalists of any nationality killed during World War II, which lasted six years.

The precise number of journalists wounded since the start of the war remains unclear. CPJ puts the figure at 59, though the true number is likely higher due to challenges in documentation.

Journalists in Gaza have long said they were being targeted by Israeli forces. Since October 2023, Reporters Without Borders has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court accusing Israel of committing war crimes against journalists. The organization says it has “reasonable grounds to believe that some of these journalists were deliberately killed.”

The Israeli military has repeatedly denied targeting journalists, including in a statement to the consortium for this story, but has also accused some of the journalists of having connections to militant groups, without providing substantiated evidence.

The Israeli military did not respond to specific questions about al-Wahidi’s case, but a spokesperson said military officials “outright reject the allegation of a systemic attack on journalists.” The spokesperson said they cannot address “operational directives and regulations as they are classified” but added that commanders adhere to law of armed conflict.

Irene Khan, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression, has documented cases of journalists who said they were targeted.

“There have been clearly cases,” she said, “where I have taken testimony from journalists who were injured, perhaps, or those who were around in that area where it’s very clear that they were targeted.”

“The Sound of the Shots”

“I was filming a report for my colleague Anas al-Sharif,” al-Wahidi recalled of the moments before the attack. “We were surprised by a drone [that] appeared and fired directly at us.”

The six journalists interviewed all said they were fired on by Israeli drones — what Palestinians in Gaza commonly refer to as a “quadcopter,” referring to four rotors, but used as a catchall for drones that carry firearms.

Shaheen, the Al Jazeera Mubasher journalist, said that when the quadcopter fires, “it’s precise, not random. The gunfire hit exactly where the journalists were standing.”

The existence of sniper drone technology is well-documented, and Israel has been developing it since at least 2017. Yet, despite widespread accounts of attacks from people in Gaza and witnesses to their aftermath, no visual or photographic evidence of the weapon has emerged. (The Israeli military did not respond to the consortium’s questions about whether sniper drones were being used in Gaza.)

James Patton Rogers, a drone expert at Cornell University, said the technology exists and will likely be deployed in the future but emphasized that without footage, he cannot confirm its use in Gaza

The Palestinian journalists, for their part, don’t need to wait for confirmation.

“We lived through it, we didn’t just see it,” said Shaheen.

“No one dares to raise a camera, as you never know where it might strike next,” said Islam Bader, who is certain the journalists were fired on by a drone. “Without a shadow of a doubt, it came from a quadcopter.”

The journalists said they have learned to distinguish between the constant hum of surveillance drones, which they have grown accustomed to, and the sharper, unique reports of firing “quadcopters.”

“The sound of the drone’s fire is distinct,” said Imam Bader, “and the shots and the sound of the gunfire comes from above.”

The Bullet’s Trajectory

ARIJ, The Intercept, and their partners obtained and reviewed multiple medical reports detailing the devastating impact of the bullet that struck al-Wahidi.

The two surgeons who operated on the journalist in Gaza — a vascular surgeon and a neurosurgeon — said a single bullet entered from the front-left side of his neck, just above his vest, and exited at a lower point in the back, near the upper vertebrae of his spinal cord, damaging them as it passed through.

Jinan Khatib, a forensic expert accredited by the Lebanese Ministry of Justice, reviewed CT scans and photos of al-Wahidi’s wounds and told the consortium that one could “reasonably conclude that the bullet was fired from a higher level in relation to the victim.”

Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a professor of conflict medicine at the American University of Beirut, who was in Gaza during the early months of the war, also reviewed the images and reports.

“The injury is consistent with a high-velocity gunshot wound,” he concluded. “The bullet was fired from above, because the entry point is higher in the neck than the area of damage in the spine, so it’s a downward trajectory of the bullet.”

122 Days in Gaza

Islam Bader was the first to reach al-Wahidi after he was shot. Journalists at the scene carried him to the car and rushed to the Baptist Hospital in Gaza. Al-Tanani and Lubbad, the other journalists killed and injured in Jabalaia that day, were brought to the same hospital.

Al-Wahidi suffered severe injuries. The spinal injury left him unable to move his lower body. Two surgeries stabilized him, but Gaza’s health care system, which is damaged by repeated Israeli attacks on hospitals, lacked the resources for his treatment. Medical supplies were running low, and hospitals were overwhelmed. He needed to be evacuated.

Israel refused, citing security concerns, but the calls for his evacuation grew. U.N. human rights officials issued a joint statement demanding his immediate transfer.

“Israel has an obligation under international law to facilitate that right,” they wrote.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense unit responsible for civilian life in the Occupied Territories denied the request, according to the statement. (The Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.)

Al-Wahidi was only allowed to leave after a ceasefire was brokered. On February 8, 2025 — 122 days after he was shot — he traveled to Egypt.

It’s unclear what about al-Wahidi’s status — or the purported security threat he posed — had changed.

Killing Through the Ceasefire

For weeks after the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect in January, no journalists in Gaza were killed. On March 15, however, while the ceasefire was still in effect, at least seven people, including at least two journalists, were killed in two Israeli strikes in Beit Lahia.

Israel took credit for the killings and accused the journalists, without evidence, of being members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (The Israeli military declined a request for more information.)

Just two nights later, on March 18, Israel launched a wave of airstrikes across Gaza, killing more than 400 people in a single night and effectively ending the ceasefire. On March 24, two journalists were killed within hours: Palestine Today correspondent Mohammed Mansour and Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent Hossam Shabat. As the war returned in full force, journalists once again fear for their lives.

Al-Wahidi turned 25 last January. As a result of his injuries, he said, he feels like his hands have electric currents running through them; it keeps him up at night.

“The painkillers don’t work,” he says, his voice frail.

In photos from his hospital beds in Gaza, Cairo, and now Doha, however, al-Wahidi is almost always smiling — a smile that belies the way a single bullet permanently reshaped his life.

“Since the injury, I can’t walk. I can’t do anything,” he said. “And that’s been my reality. I hope that I can walk again, so I can go back to planning the future I was dreaming of.”

With additional reporting from Zarifa Abou Qoura of ARIJ; Anouk Aflalo Doré, Frédéric Métézeau, Mariana Abreu, Youssr Youssef, and Samer Shalabi of Forbidden Stories; Nicolás Pablo Grone, Yassin Musharbash, and Luisa Hommerich of Die Zeit; and Carlos Gonzales of Bellingcat.