Kholoud Wael al-Dahdouh did not survive the Israeli shelling on her family last October; instead, her sister Sham passed away

Accounts on the (X) platform, circulated two pictures, one of the Qatari Al Jazeera Channel’s correspondent in Gaza, journalist Wael al-Dahdouh, with his children in a hospital bed, and the other showing his daughter Kholoud.

The accounts commented on them, saying: “The family of Wael al-Dahdouh and Al Jazeera Channel announced the death of Wael’s daughter a month ago, but she appeared with him yesterday upon his arrival in Doha for treatment. Is there an explanation for this? Or is the drama they presented to the Arab world with the story of Mohammed al-Dura repeating itself?”

This circulation comes in the context of casting doubt on the suffering of journalist Wael al-Dahdouh due to the loss of several family members in the Israeli shelling.

The Palestinian Observatory “Tahaqaq” the authenticity of the allegations accompanying the two pictures by searching public sources and reached the following results:

Firstly: The person appearing in the photo is Kholoud al-Dahdouh, who survived the Israeli shelling of the house where she was with her family in the Nuseirat camp on October 25, 2023. The bombing resulted in the death of several members of Wael al-Dahdouh’s family, including his wife and his children Mahmoud (17 years old) and Sham (7 years old), as well as his grandson. This is confirmed by a report published by Al Jazeera channel on the details of Wael al-Dahdouh receiving the news of his family’s bombing live on air.

According to the report, Wael received a call from an unknown person before his daughter Kholoud spoke to him, informing him of the Israeli army’s targeting of the place they were in. She mentioned leaving the location without knowing exactly what had happened. Another video documented the last moments of the Dahdouh family’s meeting, who survived the Israeli targeting in the hospital during the initial farewell moments, with his daughter Kholoud appearing in a difficult psychological state due to the loss of her mother, brother, and sister.

Therefore, the Palestinian Observatory “Tahaqaq” confirms that the person appearing in the two pictures accompanying the allegations is Kholoud Wael al-Dahdouh, who did not die, and her death was not announced. Instead, she survived the Israeli shelling of her family, and she later appeared on her official Instagram account in several videos documenting the situation in Gaza under the continuous Israeli bombardment since the beginning of the war.

Secondly: Regarding the second picture attached to the allegations, the Palestinian Observatory team traced the origin of the second picture attached to the allegations, and it was cropped from a recorded video published by Kholoud with her brother Mahmoud about two weeks before he was killed on October 11, 2023. They were speaking in English about the conditions in Gaza under the ongoing Israeli war.

It is worth mentioning that Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of journalist Wael, was killed on January 1, 2024, along with his colleague Mustafa Thraya, following an Israeli shelling that targeted them and a group of journalists west of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.