Fadi al-Wahidi
فادي الوحيدي
Al Jazeera cameraman · Jabalia, northern Gaza
Fadi al-Wahidi was shot in the neck by Israeli fire while filming near Jabalia refugee camp, leaving him paralyzed; Israel blocked his medical evacuation for 122 days despite appeals from UN experts, before he was finally evacuated to Egypt on February 8, 2025.
Fadi al-Wahidi, a cameraman for Al Jazeera, was covering Israel’s siege of the Jabalia area in northern Gaza on October 9, 2024, alongside correspondent Anas al-Sharif and other journalists, when he was shot in the neck. Colleagues said the shot came from an Israeli quadcopter drone; he was wearing a clearly marked press vest. The bullet severed his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed and in critical condition.
As his condition deteriorated in Gaza’s collapsed health system, UN human rights experts publicly called on Israel on November 25, 2024, to facilitate his urgent medical evacuation “without further delay,” noting that Israeli authorities continued to refuse despite repeated appeals from his doctors, family and press organizations. His case became a rallying point for hundreds of journalists worldwide who signed petitions demanding Israel allow wounded reporters out of Gaza.
On February 8, 2025 — 122 days after he was shot, and twenty days after a ceasefire took effect — al-Wahidi was finally evacuated through the Rafah crossing to a hospital in Cairo, under the ceasefire’s medical evacuation provisions. A 2025 investigation by Forbidden Stories’ “Gaza Project,” a consortium of more than 50 journalists, reconstructed the shooting and concluded he was targeted while identifiable as press. He continues treatment and rehabilitation abroad.
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A Forbidden Stories investigation concluded he was shot while clearly identifiable as press; evacuated to Egypt, he continues treatment and rehabilitation for paralysis.