A Targeted Assassination
Why Was Fatma Hassouna Killed Now?
Just one day after her appearance in a Cannes-selected documentary was announced, Palestinian photojournalist and artist Fatma Hassouna was killed in an Israeli airstrike on her family home in Gaza City. Nine members of her family died with her. This was not collateral damage. This was a targeted assassination.
Fatma had already gained international recognition for her searing photojournalism documenting life — and death — under Israeli siege. Her work had been featured in The Guardian and other international outlets. She was not a faceless victim of war. She had a name, a following, a camera — and a voice that refused to be silenced.
And that’s exactly what made her a threat.
The timing is impossible to ignore. On April 15th, Cannes’ ACID programme announced that Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, directed by Sepideh Farsi and centred on Fatma, would premiere at this year’s festival. Less than 24 hours later, an Israeli missile hit her home.
Is it a coincidence that the Israeli military bombed her house right after the world was told her story would be told on one of the biggest stages in cinema?
There was no evidence presented of Hamas activity. No statement of regret. No pledge to investigate. Just silence — and another journalist erased.
As journalist Ryan Grim commented on X:
“For this to have been a deliberate act — which it plainly was — consider what that means. A person within the IDF saw the news that Fatma’s film was accepted into Cannes. He/she/they then proposed assassinating her. Other people reviewed the suggestion and approved it. Then other people carried it out.”
This wasn’t about a military target. This was about silencing a woman who bore witness. Someone whose images and words refused to let the world look away. Her life force, as the Cannes team described it, was miraculous. Her death was intentional.
In the words of the filmmakers who selected the documentary:
“Her smile was as magical as her tenacity: Bearing witness, photographing Gaza, distributing food despite bombs, grief and hunger… We feared for her. Yesterday, we learned with horror that an Israeli missile targeted her building.”
Fatma Hassouna was not a bystander. She was a journalist, an artist, and a protagonist in a film that was about to bring Gaza’s pain and courage to the world stage. Killing her was a message — one meant to intimidate others who dare to tell the truth.
It didn’t work.
We will not forget her. We will remember her story and ensure her work is seen — in Cannes, and beyond.
We will condemn the systematic targeting of journalists, and we will keep speaking. Because truth has outlived every tyranny in history.
Free Palestine. From the river to the sea.
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Article Series Zionism
Didnt the nazis back in nazi germany also targeted and killed the educated first? I live in germany and can remember how our history teacher once told us about a teacher in 1945 who dared to critize hitler and the next day he was gone and no one knew where he was. Israel is doing the same shit. I mean they targeted at the beginning of this genocide so many teachers, doctors, poets and journalists- well still today sadly...