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‘He was my everything’: UAE doctor mourns slain journalist brother killed in Lebanon
Issam Abdallah, an award-winning Reuters journalist and filmmaker, was killed in while covering clashes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah
- PUBLISHED: Mon 29 Sept 2025, 6:00 AM
Journalists covering conflict zones often pay a heavy price — sometimes even with their lives. Dr Abeer Abdallah, a UAE resident, knows this pain all too well: Her journalist brother Issam was killed in Lebanon in 2023, leaving her grappling with grief for over a year and a half.
“I'm older than him by just two years so we grew up almost like twins,” she said. “He was my best friend, my partner, my everything. Only recently with a lot of therapy, I have started to accept the reality that I cannot text him anymore. It is like a piece of my flesh is missing but I can still feel the pain, like a phantom limb.”
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Issam Abdallah, an award-winning Reuters journalist and filmmaker, was killed in southern Lebanon while covering clashes between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hezbollah. An Israeli tank fired two 120mm rounds within 45 seconds at the group of journalists, killing Issam and injuring six others.
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Dr Abeer was speaking at a panel discussing the psychological impact of journalistic reporting in conflict zones. It was part of the annual conference of Middle East North Africa Trauma Alliance (MENATA) — an association that aims to transform trauma care across the MENA region.
'Feeling useless'
Joining virtually from London, BAFTA and Emmy-winning Gazan journalist Youssef Hammash shared the emotional toll of witnessing suffering from afar.
“I know that after filming, my team has to stand in line for bread or water,” he said. “Recently, they were displaced from Gaza City to the south. I felt useless because I couldn’t support my own team on the ground, who are my old friends. The most painful part of it, to be honest, is the feeling of safety sitting in London when I know my counterparts are going through hell.”
Hammash explained the delicate balance of his work. “I have a platform in the West to show the world what’s happening to my people, but I must put aside my personal emotions. It's not an easy thing to deal with, especially because 70 per cent of my job is translating people's grief and their most desperate moments.”
Yet, he added, his job is also his "coping mechanism". “I'm alone. I have lost two of my homes and half my family, but we don't suffer from PTSD yet because we are still in the trauma itself,” he said.
“We are taking it day by day...Otherwise, I think just witnessing what's going on in Gaza and that feeling of being useless will drive me mad. This job is a responsibility," he added.
Leaving a mark
Another member of the panel, Mughira Al Sharif, Emmy award winning Syrian frontline reporter pointed out that journalists covering war and conflict zones often return home with “invisible scars”, which continue to impact them long after they leave.
“They can experience PTSD, survivor's guilt and tension,” he said. “Rarely that the trauma stays with the journalist alone. Families feel it too. They live with constant anxiety. So, early professional support is absolutely critical in this situation.”
He explained that his manager at BBC urged him to seek support after he left Syria and therapy helped him immensely. The session, which was held in Dubai, left an empty chair on stage with the press jacket to pay tribute to the over 270 journalists and media workers killed by Israel since it launched its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.
The cost of telling the truth
Dr Abeer shared how a regular assignment — which he undertook just a week after he turned 37 — had turned deadly for Issam, and how she felt “complete betrayal” at his killing.
“He went to Turkey to document the stories of earthquake survivors, he spent a month in Ukraine, he went to Syria where he interviewed the remaining ISIS families, he's been in revolution in Egypt,” she said.
“He has been in every single situation that you think is dangerous, but not Lebanon. That day was just a casual day for him. He went to the south on a very safe town, so far away from the borders. It didn’t give me any notion that he’s in danger — not to me, not to his friends, not even to himself.”
She said the hardest part was dealing with the silence — from journalists as well as the international community. Yousef, meanwhile noted that wearing a Press jacket was earlier a form or protection but had now become a target. “We were told we may become collateral damage,” he said. “No one told us that we would be systematically targeted."
Mughira added that it was high time that international journalists stand up for each other and turn away from organizations that don’t protect their staff. The emotional session ended with a standing ovation lasting over a minute, many in the audience wiping away tears.
