Emotional outburst on live TV from Gaza over death of reporter encapsulates collective grief

By ISABEL DEBRE and NAJIB JOBAIN
Associated Press

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — The on-air outburst of grief by Salman al-Bashir seemed to channel the mood of all Gaza. From the crowded halls of Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, al-Bashir was reporting late Thursday on the stream of wounded and dead Palestinians arriving in the wake of Israel’s heavy bombardment on the south. One of the victims, loaded into the hospital morgue with 10 of his family members, was his own colleague, veteran Palestine TV correspondent Mohammed Abu Hatab, 49. Just an hour earlier, Abu Hatab had delivered a live report on Israeli bombings from that very location.