In November, veteran journalist, mediator and translator Mohammed Dawwas died in Gaza after fleeing fighting. Mohammed suffered a stroke as a result of Israel’s war with Hamas and was unable to receive medical care. The following are tributes to his life and his work with VOA and other news organizations.

VOA senior correspondent Luis Ramirez said Hamas’s incursion into the Gaza Strip in the years after it took control of the tiny Palestinian enclave in 2007 was traumatic.

After clearing Israeli security, Ramirez will walk down a gravel road carrying his luggage and press gear, including body armor. Israeli soldiers watched from behind as he walked through the abandoned war zone, the no-man’s land between Israel and Gaza.

Ahead of him, Hamas soldiers watched as he slowly approached their checkpoint.

“There was total destruction for about a kilometer on either side,” Ramirez said. “This is certainly a very sinister prelude to what people are going to see in Gaza.”

After leaving the Hamas checkpoint, Ramirez headed to a parking lot behind a barbed wire fence where family members waited for friends or relatives from across the border.

Local journalists, known as “mediators,” would wait for their foreign colleagues. Among them, Mohammad Dawes.

Mohammed is a well-known journalist who has worked for several major news outlets, including Voice of America, the BBC, independent, Mirror, republic and sunday times.

“Once I found him, I knew everything was going to be okay, even though it was in a not-so-good place,” Ramirez said.

life in gaza

According to his daughter Yasmin Dawwas, Muhammad’s journalism career began by chance. The 32-year-old doctor has been helping surviving family members flee Gaza in recent months.

Muhammad’s daughter said that in the late 1980s, while Muhammad was studying at a university in the United States, he bought a return ticket to visit his parents. But when he arrived in Gaza, he discovered that his mother was ill. So he stayed.

“One thing led to another,” Yasmin said. “He married my mother and started working as a journalist.”

Mohammed’s career took off with the signing of the first Oslo Accords, a landmark 1993 interim peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that briefly quelled hostilities and provided a Gaza brings a lot of attention from foreign journalists and the international community.

Mohamed, who spoke fluent English, got to work telling the stories of the people of Gaza, going beyond the headlines generated by politicians and radical leaders.

“He felt there wasn’t enough international coverage of Gaza,” Yasmin said. “He really wanted to play a role in reporting on the suffering of the people in Gaza and trying to break down stereotypes.”

In 2007, conflict broke out between Fatah and Hamas after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections. When Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel and Egypt, also won the hand-to-hand battle, the borders on both sides were closed and the local economy suffered.

In late 2008, Hamas fired rockets into nearby Israeli towns and Israeli bombs flew into the strip, sparking the first of several bloody clashes. Over the next decade, approximately 3,400 Palestinians and 80 Israelis were killed.

During that time, Mohammed was on the ground documenting conflicts with foreign media and documenting life in war zones. He is well known among journalists for being connected to all parties involved. He had sources in hospitals and ministries, local military officials and civilians.

He worked with VOA’s Ramirez and other foreign correspondents, including Scott Bobb.

“What struck me was how thorough he was,” Bob recalled of Muhammad. “He was well prepared and always delivered on his promises.”

Mohammad took Bob to places often unseen in Gaza, such as the entrance to the enclave’s famous tunnels. These include ventilated concrete-walled passages several kilometers long and tens of meters deep that can hide the movements of military groups, as well as 2-meter-wide earth tunnels.

“Typically, you don’t have access to this content as a foreigner or as a journalist,” Bobb said. “He let me in because he knew when the Hamas guards or whoever was taking their breaks. So, we went in, we did interviews and shot footage, and left before they came back.”

war now

For many Gazans, the war that began on October 7, 2023, is the hardest part of a lifetime’s struggle.

Muhammad was in poor health due to an early stroke. He suffered a second stroke shortly after Hamas attacked Israel and sparked the conflict. About a week later, Israeli forces asked civilians to flee northern Gaza. Muhammad was unable to walk, but the family moved south, leaving behind the specialized equipment needed to care for him.

At first they stayed with relatives. But a month or two later, as Israeli troops moved in, the area was evacuated.

It was after this second move that Muhammad’s health problems began to become life-threatening. The family tried to get him into the hospital, but the hospital was overwhelmed with war casualties and related emergencies.

“[My mother and my sisters] They tried everything they could, but in the end he died. Yasmin said, “The ambulance also came after he died.” “

Mohammed died on November 25, 2023, during a week-long ceasefire that allowed the return of 100 Israeli hostages and nearly 250 Palestinian prisoners. The ceasefire also allowed Mohammed to be buried in accordance with Islamic traditions and allowed his family to hold small ceremonies.

Muhammad’s family believes he would have survived if he had received medical care.

Days after burying their father, the family was forced to flee again.

Abed Alhakeem Abusamra, 65, a Gaza journalist and a long-time colleague and friend of Mohammed, said the subsequent evacuation was the most difficult. As most of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents have moved to the south of the 41-kilometer-long strip, survival has become harder for even the young and healthy.

“We are suffering from lack of sanitation, healthcare and healthy food. Everything,” said Abu Samra. “Now I am with my family, 12 people living in a 3.5 x 5 meter tent It’s not even good for animals.”

true legacy

Abu Samra said Mohammed died at a terrible time in Gaza’s history, but his contribution would not be forgotten.

“Our families are happy and excited to get to know each other on a personal level,” he added. “Mohammed was an intelligent man…he was a loving and polite man.”

Muhammad is a husband and father of eight children, including five girls. He loved the sea and his farm, where he raised chickens and oranges.

“He was more like a friend to us,” Yasmin said. “He was very receptive and very supportive of everything we wanted to say. We had the freedom to think.”

Yasmeen remembers her father crying through the window when she was being treated for asthma in the ward as a child. In the room, he makes therapy fun, full of conversation and laughter. “I had to tease my sister because I was getting more attention from him,” Yasmin said.

VOA journalists remembered Mohammed with admiration and sadness and said his war-time death meant something to outsiders beyond the loss of a colleague.

“It just reminds you that these horrific death tolls are not just numbers,” said Sonja Pace, a VOA reporter who worked with Mohammed in Gaza in the early 2000s. “They are people. They are families. They are husbands, fathers, brothers, mothers, wives and sisters.”

Ramirez said his death also brought back memories of the loss felt every time the journey into Gaza is reversed.

Inside Gaza, journalists reported violent fighting, overcrowded hospitals and mourning families. But the fact that these horrific events occurred behind a closed border, inaccessible to most people in Gaza, is heartbreaking for those leaving the Strip.

“Saying farewell to a trusted colleague and friend…” Ramirez said, “Each time, I never knew if I would ever see him or hear him again in those visually jarring surroundings. The voice, it’s really hard, and there’s something that’s stuck with me forever.” “