No worries, here’s the beginning of the revised article:
May 13, 2021, will be remembered as a day of extreme tension in Gaza City. Amid the explosions, Palestinian journalist Youmna el Sayed stood in front of the camera, reporting live from the epicenter of the conflict.
In Gaza, already scarred by years of siege and war, the territory was once again transformed into a battlefield as Israel launched an 11-day military offensive.
For El Sayed, this perilous situation was not new; over the years, she had become an unwavering witness to the cycles of violence that governed life in Gaza.
Two and a half years later, on October 8 of last year, El Sayed found herself in a familiar situation. She was reporting in real time, live, as an Israeli missile targeted the tower behind her – a symbol of press freedom, home to many media institutions, including her Al Jazeera colleague Wael Dahdouh – in retaliation for a Hamas attack the day before.
As the tower collapsed, El Sayed was no longer just an observer of the destruction; she was a survivor, living the very story she was reporting.
But this time, the scale of the devastation was much greater. The death toll was mounting, and with it, the weight of the stories she was told.
Among those stories was that of 11-year-old Ashfaaq, emerging from an ambulance in Khan Younis, her face bruised.
Clutching his blue backpack to his chest, he approached El Sayed and said, “Do you know what I have here?”
In the blood-stained bag was his little brother, Ahmed – a grim reminder of the human cost of war.
For El Sayed, these were not just stories, but personal struggles.