Al Jazeera journalist goes back on air from Gaza after his wife, son, daughter were killed by an Israeli airstrike

• An Al Jazeera TV reporter went back on air after his wife and children were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
• Wael Al Dahdouh said it was his duty to continue reporting, despite "the pain and the open wound."

A news journalist from Al Jazeera went back on air from Gaza days after his wife, son, daughter, and other relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

"I felt that it was my duty, despite the pain and the open wound, to get back in front of the camera and to communicate with you on social media as soon as possible," Wael Al Dahdouh said in a video message, per Al Jazeera.

He thanked people for their condolences and prayers, and said he felt compelled to keep working due to the ongoing violence.

"As you can see, the firing is ongoing everywhere. There are airstrikes and artillery shelling, and things continue to develop," he said. Behind him, smoke can be seen billowing from buildings.

Al Jazeera also published footage of an emotional Al Dahdouh in a hospital on October 26 as he received news that his wife, 15-year-old son, 7-year-old daughter, and grandson had been killed.

In the video, he decried what he said was "a series of targeted attacks of children, women and civilians."

The veteran journalist, who has reported from Gaza since 2004, previously said that he split his family between different areas so that at least some would survive if one area was hit.

On this occasion, his family had taken shelter in an area designated to be a "safe zone" by Israel, Al Jazeera reported.

Several more of his family members were still under the rubble of the building that was struck, the outlet said.

Mahmoud, Al Dahdouh's 15-year-old son who was killed in the strike, recently recorded a video in which he spoke about the dire situation in Gaza and called for the international community's support.

"Help us to stay alive," he said in the video.

Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, asked Qatar to help moderate Al Jazeera's coverage of the Israel — Hamas war, Axios reported earlier this week.

The Arab Gulf state funds the 24-hour English-language news channel, where it has its HQ. Al Jazeera bills itself as "one of the most influential international news networks in the world."

Blinken told American Jewish community leaders that the news channel's framing of the conflict threatened to inflame public opinion and increase the risk of triggering a wider conflict, said the report.

Following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks that massacred 1,400 people in Israel, the IDF has bombarded Gaza with airstrikes, killing more than 6,500 people, per the Gaza Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled enclave.