Reaching into the body bag, and gently cradling her face, a family member places a mobile phone next to Mariam Abu Dagga's ear. It is a devastating moment. Mariam, a journalist for Independent Arabia, has just been killed in an Israeli double-tap strike on the last functioning hospital in southern Gaza.
She is surrounded by mourners in a tableau of grief. On the phone is her only child, 14-year-old Ghaith. And he is saying goodbye.
He is more than 1,000 miles away, after his mother fought hard for him to be evacuated to safety in the UAE a year earlier. And so - amid Israel's unprecedented siege and bombardment of Gaza - this is the only way for the distraught young boy to say goodbye. Please tell me you're safe.
This time it is to say goodbye, in the hope that somewhere her soul would hear it. Israel killed 33-year-old Mariam on 25 August 2025, while she was covering the bombing of her colleague, cameraman Hussam al-Masri. Israel had killed Hussam around eight minutes earlier, while he tended to his camera which was broadcasting the livestream from Nasser Hospital, a building protected under international law.
She had rushed to the scene to find out what had happened. This meant her killing was live-streamed to the world. A friend of Mariam's, Ghad TV correspondent Ibrahim Qannan, was filming it all from his live position just a few metres away in the aftermath of the first tank projectile which blew up Hussam.
In Ibrahim's footage, you can see Mariam there in a white headscarf and black abaya. Any journalist who covers conflict will instantly recognise that intense concentration: she is entirely focused, intently filming the rescue mission on her mobile. No time to think, to process her own grief or the enormity of the situation around her.
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