Palestinian Journalists In Gaza Gathered To Sing “We Will Stay Here” Despite Intense Israeli Bombing
“We will stay here until the pain passes,” the journalists sang. “We will live here. The song shall be sweet. My homeland, my homeland, my proud homeland.”
As Israel launches its most intense bombing and attacks across the Gaza Strip following the collapse of a seven-day pause, numerous Palestinian journalists in Gaza gathered together to sing the song, “We Will Stay Here”.
The viral video, shared by Al Jazeera cameraman Hamdan al-Dahdouh on his Instagram on Dec. 4, showed several prominent Palestinian journalists joining in song.
They included Al Jazeera Arabic’s bureau chief Wael Dahodouh, whose wife and children were killed by Israeli airstrikes, and content creator Saleh Aljafarawi, both of whom have been reporting live on-the-ground in Gaza since the war began.
Dahdouh, who learned of the death of his family while reporting live, went back to work the day, pledging not to stop reporting from Gaza.
“We will stay here until the pain passes,” the journalists sang. “We will live here. The song shall be sweet. My homeland, my homeland, my proud homeland.”
“Despite the enemy’s plots, despite all the vengeance, we will strive until the blessings prevail,” they continued. “We will sing to raise the determination by marching to the top and conquering new heights.”
The song, “We Will Stay Here”, was written by a Libyan doctor in 2005 and became a protest anthem across multiple countries during the Arab Spring in 2011, according to Al Jazeera.
Just weeks earlier, Palestinian medical staff also sang the song at different hospitals to show their determination in staying in Gaza despite Israel’s attacks.
Since the fighting resumed, several Palestinian journalists in Gaza, including 24-year-old Motaz Azaiza and 25-year-old Bisan Owda, have voiced growing worries about their survival.
“I no longer have any hope of survival like I had at the beginning of this genocide, and I am certain that I will die in the next few weeks or maybe days,” Owda wrote on Instagram.
“I suffer from nightmares that are so closely resemble reality that I no longer differentiate between reality and dream. I live in a world other than the one I claimed to be building! I am a community activist who lived on the fantasy that the world was free and just, and I sought to bring rights not only to my people, but to many men and women in third world countries!”
Azaiza, who has 16.4 million followers on Instagram, has said that he will stop reporting to focus on survival.
A day later, he was shot at by Israeli soldiers.
“Guys from my age around the world are busy with their careers, travel, their loved ones and planning for their future,” Azaiza wrote on Instagram. “Here you can’t even make a plan for the next 5 minutes. Everything we built, we dreamed about got demolished.”
