In the early months of the war in Gaza, as Israeli airstrikes left homes, media offices, and public infrastructure in ruins, thousands of Palestinians were displaced. Journalists, like many others, sought temporary refuge in hospital courtyards — one of the few remaining spaces with access to electricity and limited internet.
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, a group of photojournalists set up a small tent beside the morgue. Within that small tent — its pale fabric pitched beneath the constant hum of drones and the stench of death — photojournalist Belal Khaled began the project that would become his front-line visual narrative of survival amid destruction. Outside, the adjacent morgue overflowed, filled mostly with the bodies of women and children killed or wounded in the bombardment.
Among his photographs is a young girl who lost her hand when her home in northern Gaza was destroyed on 17 November 2023. “After today, I will no longer be able to comb my hair with my own hand,” she said. Her words reflect the personal tragedies behind the statistics: according to Gaza’s Government Media Office, at least 20,000 children — roughly two percent of Gaza’s child population — have been killed since October 2023.
These images bear witness to Gaza’s reality — asserting presence, memory, and truth where destruction seeks to erase them. Each frame becomes both testimony and memory: a father cradling his daughter, a woman standing before the ruins of her home, a child watching in silence. As he puts it: “If we turn off our cameras, the truth disappears. Each crime must be documented. These are not numbers — these are names, lives, families.” Khaled covered 185 consecutive days of genocide inside Gaza before his departure in April.
Belal Khaled is a Palestinian photographer and artist from Gaza. He grew up in refugee camps in Gaza, where his vision was shaped by the depth of the Palestinian cause and the experience of displacement. That motive led him to dedicate his work into documenting the struggles of refugees around the world. He has covered numerous humanitarian crises from Syria to Azerbaijan, and more. His work has been featured in Time, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and Al Jazeera, and continues to foreground the lived experience of Palestinians through a lens of endurance and human dignity. At present, Belal is based in Doha and working at Al Jazeera Media Network.
