Watan-The director of Al Jazeera’s office in the Gaza Strip, Wael al-Dahdouh, conducted his first interview since arriving in Qatar for medical treatment.
The interview with Wael al-Dahdouh was with the Qatari newspaper, Al Sharq, which described it as an exceptional conversation with an extraordinary figure in an exceptional period, calling him a “symbol, icon, and a mountain.”
In the interview, al-Dahdouh mentioned the difficulty of talking about Gaza due to the unimaginable events that surpassed human capacity and imagination.
He stated, “This war truly made us feel that all previous wars were mere rehearsals or limited skirmishes compared to the magnitude of what we witnessed, and the shock of what we saw. The people in the Gaza Strip are paying a steep price beyond imagination.”
He emphasized that the displacement people are experiencing is painful, challenging, and extremely complex, making people dream of the simplest things, such as having a “tent,” with al-Dahdouh noting sadly, “People dream of owning a tent as if it were a palace.”
What did Wael al-Dahdouh say about the Al-Aqsa Storm?
Regarding the events of the Al-Aqsa Storm, al-Dahdouh said, “What happened on October 7th is not trivial; perhaps the most difficult moment since the establishment of Israel on the ruins of the Palestinian people and Palestinian land.”
He continued, “Perhaps it is the most difficult moment in its history, so this war, for Israel, was the second independence.”
He added, “(Israelis) expressed this in their statements, considering it the restoration of the state from the occupation’s perspective, and the two factors collaborated, and Israel translated them with this cruelty, barbarism, and brutality in the attack on Gaza.”
A war different from its predecessors
Al-Dahdouh explained that this war is different on all levels, starting where previous wars ended, at least in terms of destruction.
Israel began with a war on tall towers and buildings, then proceeded to a war on houses, destroying them with inhabitants inside without any red lines, and finally, it escalated to closing crossings and cutting off electricity and water.
He stated, “Therefore, the Gaza Strip is experiencing this severity for the first time. In previous wars, yes, they were harsh and deadly, but each war had its distinctive features. There was a glimmer of hope, a working crossing, some areas were less dangerous than others, and people could find relatively safe places to escape to. But this time, there is no safe haven at all, no safe place to seek refuge.”
A war that harvests everything in Gaza
Al-Dahdouh said, “Today, we are approaching four months since the aggression, and the war is taking everything, and the seasons of suffering intensify gradually, every minute, every hour, every night, and every day. We are talking about a very large and very costly bill, and suffering that intensifies moment by moment.”
He pointed out that Gaza poses a thorn to Israel, and therefore, Israel desires to end this thorn and eliminate it, noting that many Israeli leaders have expressed their wishes for Gaza to drown in the sea and be removed and destroyed.