Roshdi Sarraj died Sunday in an Israeli bombardment on a neighborhood in Gaza City. He has worked with the correspondents and special correspondents of Radio France since May 2021. Two of them pay tribute to him.
He was born in 1992 in London. Roshdi Sarraj died at the age of 31 on Sunday, October 22, in an Israeli bombing of the Tel Al Hawa neighborhood, a neighborhood in Gaza City. He had worked with Radio France correspondents and special correspondents since May 2021, the date of the previous war between Hamas and Israel.
Originally a photo-reporter, with his wife and several friends, he founded the Ain Media press agency which employed editors, cameramen, photographers, editors and visual editors. It is a very serious agency, contacted by Netflix to shoot documentary sequences, which opened its premises to Radio France correspondents during their reports in Gaza.
Independent of mind, open to the world, capable of gaining a lot of perspective in relation to the endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Roshdi was a complete fixer: he led us, found the interlocutors interesting, translated their words from Arabic into English, knew how to take charge of an interview if he felt that the interlocutor was losing us or trying to divert us from the subject, explained the situation, watched the Arab media, deciphered what was happening, aware of the expectations of foreign journalists but also permanent pressure from Hamas.
“I will only leave Gaza through the sky”
Despite the dangers incurred in wartime (one of his colleagues was killed by the Israeli army during reporting on a “return march” in 2018 and another two weeks ago) he preferred to stay at home in the northern Gaza Strip, explaining that his family had fled Jaffa (now Israel) in 1948 and that he did not want to relive a second Nakba. On social media, he continued to document what was happening in Gaza by posting photos of the bombings.
Roshdi Sarraj did his job with the greatest humility, the greatest kindness, the greatest professionalism. He was attentive to others, asked the right question to the right person, without making a fuss, without being miserable, but without in any way softening the horror of the facts. He knew how to lighten the mood when we spent exhausting days trudging from the north to the south of Gaza, hearing things that hurt.
He also said that with his wife and eleven-month-old baby (injured during yesterday’s strike) he preferred to stay at home and die with dignity in a familiar place rather than in the dust on the side of a road. “I will only leave Gaza through the sky” he had written.