Haunted by their colleagues deaths: The journalists risking their lives to report on Gaza | News [Video]

(CNN) — “Whoever stays until the end, will tell the story. We did what we could. Remember us.”

Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila scrawled these farewell words in blue ink on a whiteboard in Al-Awda Hospital, in Jabalya, on October 20, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

When Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, many local journalists did stay – risking their lives to tell the stories of their people. After more than 200 days of fighting, Israeli bombardment has turned neighborhoods into rubble. Families have been torn apart by deaths and forced displacement; the threat of starvation looms. At the same time, 129 of the more than 250 hostages seized from Israel by Hamas remain captive in the territory, of whom at least 34 are thought to be dead.

Trapped in the strip alongside their fellow Gaza residents, Palestinian reporters have become the eyes and ears of those …