Gaza 2025
As a young photojournalist living in Gaza, Fatma Hassouna knew that death was always at her doorstep. As she spent the past 18 months of war documenting airstrikes, the demolition of her home, the endless displacement and the killing of 11 family members, all she demanded was that she not be allowed to go quietly.
“If I die, I want a loud death,” Hassouna wrote on social media. “I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”
On Wednesday, just months before her wedding, 25-year-old Hassouna was killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit her home in northern Gaza. Six members of her family, including her pregnant sister, were also killed.
The Israeli military said it had been a targeted strike on a Hamas member involved in attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Twenty-four hours before she was killed, it was announced that a documentary focusing on Hassouna’s life in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began would be debuted at a French independent film festival that runs parallel to Cannes.
Made by the Iranian director Sepideh Farsi, the film, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, tells the story of Gaza’s ordeal and the daily life of Palestinians through filmed video conversations between Hassouna and Farsi. As Farsi described it, Hassouna became “my eyes in Gaza … fiery and full of life. I filmed her laughs, her tears, her hopes and her depression”.
“She was such a light, so talented. When you see the film you’ll understand,” Farsi told Deadline. “I had talked to her a few hours before to tell her that the film was in Cannes and to invite her.”
She said she had lived in fear for Hassouna’s life but added: “I told myself I had no right to fear for her, if she herself was not afraid. I clung to her strength, to her unwavering faith.”