The assassination of Hossam Shabat is unbearable.

The New York Times and the Washington Post both led today with stories that IDF shill and Atlantic editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been accidentally added to a group chat between JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and others, while they planned their slaughter in Yemen.

I don’t care. It seems more important that we’re bombing the poorest country in the Middle East to prevent shipping detours than Jeffrey Goldberg getting added to a WhatsApp group. But I get why it’s the story of the day. The MSM likes its safe space, circa late aughts, when the Trump administration was Keystone-cop clownish instead of successfully instituting fascism. Instead of grappling with war, genocide, kidnapped immigrants, and the fact that we don’t have judges anymore, they get a nice little Court drama. And a stupid, tired hack gets to preen as a brave and principled journalist (I guess Bob Woodward was busy today). Front page news.

Goldberg assured CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that the minute he realized the chat was real and not a hoax, he immediately left, alerted government officials, and refuses to publish any of the information. “Once I was sure that it was real … I removed myself.”

What the Hell? Goldberg’s experience is beyond a reporter’s wildest dreams. We dream, dream of scenarios where sources or interviewees get caught off guard and say things they shouldn’t. To be a fly on the wall in a discussion among the most powerful people in the world?

And I get that it’s not in the public interest to reveal, say, the names of CIA operatives. But given the frat boy dickwads involved in the chat, I would imagine there were some colorful views expressed. Views that might lend insight into the mindsets of the most powerful people in the world as they plot more war.

What journalist is like, “Here’s some secret information with global — with deadly! — ramifications that I don’t want to know?” A former Israel prison guard pretending to be a journalist, but really devoted to protecting Empire.

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I don’t know how to transition here because I am loathe to have the name Hossam Shabat in the same universe, let alone the same post, as Jeffrey Goldberg. The New York Times and Washington Post concur, just in the opposite direction. There’s no mention of Palestinian journalist Shabat’s murder by the IDF in a targeted strike. Even though it seems newsworthy, for newspapers filled with alleged reporters, that the IDF is not even pretending that they didn’t assassinate the young journalist.

He’s the kid in the middle. Well, not a kid: an unfathomably brave journalist. I just always want to say “kids” because something about that photo makes you wish you could give them hugs and feed them. The other two were also killed. One was beheaded.

More than 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed. The exact number is 208 according to the latest news but I’m not sure that number includes Shabat and the other journalist, Mohammad Mansour, also killed yesterday.

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You may have noticed that the world has not exhibited an abundance of courage lately. My god where to start and end, but you know what I mean: from US colleges buckling to Trumpian blackmail to the media not even waging a fake #resistance like last time to fucking even wealthy law firms with all the leverage in the world. Thirsty politicians who’ve jettisoned every one of their alleged values to serve Trump in the hope of amassing future power (oh little Marco, when the leopard eats your face, it will be so, so delicious to watch 😋).

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Now let’s turn to the alternative: having courage.

Shabat refused to leave Northern Gaza after Israeli orders, continuing to report through the “ceasefire” that wasn’t a ceasefire because the IDF never stopped killing and starving people. He ran towards, not away, from every strike, documenting the carnage, despair, and outright evil. He knew he was on a hit list, and regularly regularly received death threats by call and text, according to Drop Site News, who he contributed to in addition to working for Al-Jazeera.

His video reports and writing were harrowing, and, as his colleagues at Drop Site news note, poetic. “Time now is measured not in minutes, but in lifetimes of pain and tears” as people in Gaza waited for the implementation of the ceasefire, Hossam wrote in an article for Drop Site news¹ in January. “With every passing moment the anxiety and tension of the people here grows, as they wonder whether they will stay alive long enough for the fire to cease.”

“I say to the world, I am continuing. I am covering the events with an empty stomach, steadfast and persevering. I am Hossam Shabat, from the resilient northern Gaza Strip,” he said. He was a fixture on social media. Famous. This made him a dead man walking. He didn’t stop.

From Drop Site:

Hours before he was killed, Hossam filed a story for Drop Site about Israel’s resumption of its scorched earth bombing of Gaza last week that killed over 400 people, including nearly 200 children in a matter of hours. He was eager to publish. “I want to share the text urgently,” he wrote in Arabic. He always wanted to get the story out—to report what was happening on the ground. About a year ago, Hossam wrote, “Before this genocide started, I was a young college student studying journalism. Little did I know I would be given one of the hardest jobs in the world: to cover the genocide of my own people.

Shortly before his death, a little girl approached his car. She gushed like he was a rock star—with a twist. She’d been worried that he’d been martyred.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asks her.

“A journalist!” she excitedly says. “And I was thinking, how am I going to become a journalist if Hossam Shabat were martyred? How am I supposed to become a journalist then?”

He laughs. “We’ll make you into a journalist, god willing,” he replies.

“Do you want to become a journalist?” he confirms. “God willing!” she says. “God willing you’ll become one.”

“Goodbye.”

After his death, the team behind his social media account released a statement he’d prepared in the event of his death:

If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed—most likely targeted—by the Israeli occupation forces. When this all began, I was only 21 years old—a college student with dreams like anyone else. For past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents—anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side. By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest—something I haven’t known in the past 18 months . I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause. I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honor of my life to die defending it and serving its people. I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.” — For the last time, Hossam Shabat, from northern Gaza.

1. Drop Site News is one of the only sites worth reading these days.