By Grace Del Vecchio

Messages from vigil attendees taped to the wall of the Chicago Art Department. (Photo: Grace Del Vecchio/City Bureau)

On Monday, Dec. 11, people around the world participated in a global strike calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In Chicago, a group of local media workers (including City Bureau staff members) organized a vigil in remembrance of journalists who were killed while reporting on the War on Gaza, and in support of moral clarity and accountability in media coverage.

Over 300 people attended  to honor the lives of the over 70 journalists who have been killed in Israel and Gaza since Oct. 7. As of this writing, at least 1,200 people have died in Israel. In Gaza, the total lives lost has surpassed 18,000, and the number continues to climb as the bombardment from Israeli forces continues. 

Members of Chicago media representing over a dozen local newsrooms maxed out the Chicago Art Department’s 250-person capacity, leaving a line that stretched down the block. After opening remarks, Diane Bou Khalil, Nader Issa and Meha Ahmad read aloud the name of every journalist killed in Israel and Gaza since Oct. 7, followed by 72 seconds of silence.

A line of local media workers waiting to get into the Chicago Art Department. (Photo: India Daniels/City Bureau)

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rummana Hussain noted that more journalists have been killed in the current conflict than during both the Vietnam War and World War II. By many accounts, the war in Gaza has already become the deadliest conflict on record for journalists.

“The numbers are staggering and unacceptable,” said Hussain. 

Maya Dukmasova, a senior reporter at Injustice Watch, highlighted the hypocrisy of newsrooms that rely upon the concept of press freedom, but also use it to silence their own reporters.  

“To tell a Muslim journalist or a journalist with family ties to the region that they must refrain from signing letters or taking a stand in any other way is tantamount to telling Black journalists they cannot speak out about racism,” said Dukmasova. 

Journalists across the country are grappling with pressure to either remain silent and complacent in the face of ongoing genocide or speak out and lose their jobs. 

“Since Oct. 7, it has become clear that Israel’s military does not see journalists as exempt, and therefore it is quite simply impossible to continue doing journalism in Gaza today without demanding a ceasefire in the same breath,” Dukmasova added.

Attendees packed in at the Chicago Art Department to honor journalists who have been killed in Israel and Gaza since Oct. 7. (Photo: Courtesy of Meha Ahmad)

The night was closed out by City Bureau’s digital producer Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel, who drew attention to the overwhelming need for cultural competency in newsrooms, especially when reporting on Gaza, including in local newsrooms. 

They spoke of Wadea al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy in the Chicago suburbs who died after being stabbed 26 times by a landlord enraged by Islamophobic media coverage of the war, and Hisham Awartani, a Palestinian-American college student in Vermont who was shot and paralyzed from the chest down for wearing the black-and-white keffiyeh scarf that is a symbol for solidarity with Palestine.

“Our words as journalists, in the end, have power — the power to harm, the power to heal, the power to mend,” said Mikhaiel. “Our lived experience is a part of our power. It offers a depth and nuance to our writing that should be considered as valuable, not controversial.”

A message from a vigil attendee paying homage to the late Refaat Alareer. (Photo: Grace Del Vecchio/City Bureau)

Using paper from reporters’ notebooks, attendees wrote messages mourning the loss and honoring the lives of their colleagues in Gaza. The messages will remain on the Chicago Art Department’s wall as an installation until April.

Among the sheets of papers, one taped near the center paid homage to beloved Palestinian writer, poet and professor Refaat Alareer, who was killed along with six members of his family by Israeli forces during an airstrike on his sister’s home. 

“If I must die, you must live to tell my story.”

A version of this story was first published in a December 13, 2023 edition of the Newswire, a newsletter filled with civic knowledge and opportunities for Chicagoans who want to make a difference in and for their communities.

This story is available to republish under a Creative Commons license. Read City Bureau’s guidelines here.

Support City Bureau’s community-centered reporting by becoming a City Bureau sustaining donor today.