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Palestinian journalist remembered by Iowa relatives for relentless pursuit of truth
Family members of freelance photojournalist Mariam Abu Dagga said she gave her kidney to her dad, devoted her life to her son and gave her soul to her people
Aug. 29, 2025 5:30 am, Updated: Sep. 2, 2025 11:22 am
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CORALVILLE — Relatives of Mariam Abu Dagga say the 33-year-old Palestinian photojournalist gave everything she had for her work and her people — her safety, her health, and ultimately her life.
Dagga was among five journalists killed Monday in an Israeli strike on a hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza. She is being remembered as a fearless reporter who bore witness to the war’s mounting toll while quietly carrying burdens of her own.
She freelanced for the Associated Press and other news organizations, capturing harrowing images of Palestinian families displaced from homes, people crowding around aid trucks, mourners attending funerals and doctors treating wounded or malnourished children.
“She was everywhere in Gaza, risking her life, risking everything at the same time taking care of family members,” her cousin Maisaa Abudagga, of Coralville, said in an interview with The Gazette. “She entered every house in Gaza. She ate with them. She lived with them.”
Maisaa Abudagga, who spells her last name differently from her cousin, grew up in Gaza and moved to the United States in 2006. The 46-year-old clinical pharmacist graduated from the University of Iowa in 2023 with a doctor of pharmacy.
Maisaa’s and Mariam’s mothers are sisters.
Personal sacrifices and devotion
Journalism was not Dagga’s only responsibility. Relatives say she carried her fractured family through war, displacement and illness. Years before the conflict intensified, she donated one of her kidneys to her ailing father. She supported siblings and nephews when they lacked shelter or money. She took in elderly relatives as a teenager, caring for them before she had even finished school.
“She was extremely loved by her family and her people,” Yaser Abudagga, Maisaa’s husband, said. “Her will shows how much she loved Gaza and wanted to make sure her message continued.”
Her personal life reflected her determination. After marrying young, she divorced when her husband refused to let her pursue higher education. She left with her young son, enrolled in journalism school, and built a career in one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a reporter.
“She said no one was going to decide for her that she couldn’t go to college,” Maisaa said. “She took care of her son, finished college, and worked hard until her last minute.”
Witness to loss
Dagga’s reporting captured not just headlines but the tragedies of her own family, often covering the deaths of her own relatives.
“She was literally the reporter of every death in this family and more,” Maisaa said. “If a strike hit and we didn’t know what happened, we waited until Mariam told us.”
In 2018, her brother was killed during a protest at the Gaza border. Mariam was there as a young journalist, documenting demonstrations, when she unknowingly captured his final moments on film.
“She was reporting and taking pictures, and later they told her that was her brother,” Yaser recalled. “This is the story in every family in Gaza.”
Risks of reporting in Gaza
The 2023-2025 Gaza war has become the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history, according to press freedom organizations and the United Nations.
Since the conflict began 22 months ago, 197 journalists and media workers have been confirmed killed. Of them, 189 were Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Committee to Project Journalists, making it among the deadliest places in the world for media workers.
The Israeli military has said the back-to-back strikes on southern Gaza’s largest hospital, which killed at least 20 people — including the five journalists — was aimed at a Hamas surveillance camera allegedly operating there. However, the military provided no supporting evidence, and its account conflicts with eyewitness reports from the scene, the AP reported. The first strike killed a Reuters cameraman who was filming live, and the second hit rescuers, journalists and medical workers rushing to the scene.
Rights groups and international observers condemned the strike as a violation of international law.
Israel's initial findings included an unsubstantiated claim that six of the victims were militants, including a hospital health worker and a civil defense driver, though no proof was provided. Observers noted that emergency workers operating under Gaza’s Hamas-run government have been repeatedly labeled militants in past incidents, often without corroboration.
An Israeli army spokesperson told the AP none of the journalists killed in the strikes was suspected of being associated with militant groups and that they were not targeted.
The Israeli military said it is conducting an ongoing investigation into the hospital strike. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strike a “tragic mishap,” but did not elaborate.
The strike sparked protests within Israel from groups demanding a ceasefire and hostage releases, even as Netanyahu signaled a continued offensive in Gaza City. Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported more casualties, including deaths from malnutrition, bringing the civilian toll — according to its counts — to more than 62,800. Israel disputes its figures.
Hamas took 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, in the attack that also killed about 1,200 people and triggered the war. Most hostages have been released during previous ceasefires. Israel has managed to rescue only eight hostages alive. Fifty remain in Gaza, and Israeli officials believe around 20 are still alive, according to the AP.
Relatives say Dagga was undeterred, even as colleagues were threatened or killed. She insisted on working outside political factions, choosing instead to embed herself with families and displaced residents, Maisaa said.
“She wanted to be closer to the people,” she said. “That’s what a real journalist should do instead of following any political party.”
Maisaa and Yaser said Israel has sought to silence Palestinian voices and waged a relentless battle to control the narrative about the fighting by preventing foreign correspondents from entering Gaza independently, unless accompanied by the military, citing safety and security concerns, and casting local reporters as Hamas affiliates.
“But Mariam had no relation to politics. She just wanted to show the truth,” Yaser said.
For Dagga, the danger was constant.
“She knew that one of these strikes was going to get her,” Maisaa said. “She kept sending messages saying, ‘My days are limited. It’s closer.’”
She and Yaser said they worry hunger and the constant threat of death will further stifle what the world hears about the war.
“(Mariam) she had it in her deep, deep conscious that she wanted to show the suffering of our people to the rest of the world,” Yaser said. “… A lot of the journalists in Gaza think that this is something that it's destiny for them that they have to report to the world what is going on — hoping that they will change the position of the rest of the world on what's going on in Gaza, because that's the only hope for them, is that the people from outside intervene and say, ‘Stop.’”
Final days and messages
In the days before her death, Dagga appeared exhausted but resolute. She sent relatives a voice message saying: “I feel like it’s closer. The heaven is waiting for me.”
She also left behind two wills. One was for her 14-year-old son, who she sent to live with his father in the United Arab Emirates for his safety.
“She told him to be a good boy, to focus on his future because things will change,” Yaser said. “She asked him, when he grew up and had a daughter, to name her after her.”
The second was for her colleagues. In it, she urged them not to mourn but to continue reporting.
“She told them, ‘Don’t cry over me. This is our destiny. Keep supporting and telling the truth about Gaza,’” Yaser said. “ … The will to her son, and then also the will for the rest of the friends and journalist, shows how much she loved the land and she loved the people of Gaza — and wanted to make sure that her message will continue, and people recognize the suffering of the Palestinians and the people of Gaza and, hopefully, rectify that.”
A relentless pursuit of truth
Dagga’s relatives say her work carried a simple but urgent message: that Palestinians are human beings deserving of dignity.
“She wanted to deliver the message that we’re not less human than anyone else,” Maisaa said. “We love our community. We love all people. We thrive, even in tents, because we want to participate in humanity.”
Family members hope her story will galvanize wider awareness.
“She believed in the power of people,” Maisaa said. “I wish I can be Mariam here. I want everybody to be Mariam and use their voices. We can’t change this alone, but together we can.”
Dagga is remembered by relatives as a “social butterfly” who kept the family’s WhatsApp group filled with jokes and encouragement, even during war.
She is survived by her father and son.
“Take her story with you, keep her in mind, keep her in your thoughts, and then just be with the Palestinian people,” Maisaa asked of Iowans.
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com
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