NewsGaza Journalist's Final Photos Show Where She Was When Israel Killed Her

Gaza Journalist’s Final Photos Show Where She Was When Israel Killed Her

The last photos taken by Mariam Dagga show the damaged stairwell outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip where she would be killed by an Israeli strike moments later.

Dagga, a visual journalist who freelanced for The Associated Press, was among 22 people, including five reporters, killed Monday when Israeli forces struck Nasser Hospital twice in quick succession, according to health officials.

The photos, retrieved from her camera on Wednesday, show people walking up the staircase after it was damaged in the first strike while others look out the windows of the main health facility in southern Gaza.

Palestinians walk up the stairs of Nasser Hospital to the site of an Israeli strike, minutes before a second strike hit the same spot and killed at least 22 people in total, five of whom were journalists, in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Aug. 25, 2025. This was one of the last photos taken by AP freelancer Mariam Dagga before she walked to the site and was killed in the second strike.Palestinians walk up the stairs of Nasser Hospital to the site of an Israeli strike, minutes before a second strike hit the same spot and killed at least 22 people in total, five of whom were journalists, in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Aug. 25, 2025. This was one of the last photos taken by AP freelancer Mariam Dagga before she walked to the site and was killed in the second strike.

Mariam Dagga via Associated Press

The Israeli military said it targeted what it believed was a Hamas surveillance camera. Witnesses and health officials said the first strike killed a cameraman from the Reuters news agency doing a live television shot and a second person who was not named. A senior Hamas official denied that Hamas was operating a camera at the hospital.

Dagga, 33, and other reporters regularly based themselves at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis during the war. She documented the experiences of ordinary Palestinians who had been displaced from their homes, and doctors who treated wounded or malnourished children.

Algeria’s ambassador to the United Nations, his voice breaking and on the verge of tears, read a letter Wednesday to the U.N. Security Council that Dagga wrote days before she was killed.

Palestinian journalist Mariam Dagga takes a selfie with children at a school in Khan Younis being used for shelter, in Gaza on Oct. 31, 2023. Dagga was one of several journalists killed in Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital on Aug. 25, 2025. Palestinian journalist Mariam Dagga takes a selfie with children at a school in Khan Younis being used for shelter, in Gaza on Oct. 31, 2023. Dagga was one of several journalists killed in Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital on Aug. 25, 2025.

Jehad Alshrafi via Associated Press

It was addressed to her 13-year-old son, Gaith, who left Gaza at the start of the war to live with his father in the United Arab Emirates.

Holding up a photo of Dagga, Amar Bendjama called her “a young and beautiful mother” whose only weapon was a camera.

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