Fatima Hassouna - also written Fatma Hassona ( 1999 – 16 April 2025), was a Palestinian photojournalist whose work documented civilian life during the Gaza war. She gained international recognition for her visceral documentation of war impacts and became the subject of the documentary film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, selected for the ACID film programme shown in parallel with the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. She was killed alongside ten family members in an Israeli airstrike on their Gaza City home on 16 April 2025.
As a young photojournalist living in Gaza, Fatima Hassouna knew that death was always at her doorstep. As she spent the past 18 months of war documenting airstrikes, the demolition of her home, the endless displacement and the killing of 11 family members, all she demanded was that she not be allowed to go quietly.
“If I die, I want a loud death,” Hassouna wrote on social media. “I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”
On 16 April 2025, 25-year-old Hassouna was killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit her home in northern Gaza. Ten members of her family, including her pregnant sister, were also killed.
Twenty-four hours before she was killed, it was announced that a documentary focusing on Hassouna’s life in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began would be debuted at a French independent film festival that runs parallel to Cannes.
Made by the Iranian director Sepideh Farsi, the film, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, tells the story of Gaza’s ordeal and the daily life of Palestinians through filmed video conversations between Hassouna and Farsi. As Farsi described it, Hassouna became “my eyes in Gaza … fiery and full of life. I filmed her laughs, her tears, her hopes and her depression”.
Her death prompted a statement from the Cannes Acid film festival, where Farsi’s documentary screened in May. “We had watched and programmed a film in which this young woman’s life force seemed like a miracle,” they said. “Her smile was as magical as her tenacity. Bearing witness, photographing Gaza, distributing food despite the bombs, mourning and hunger. We heard her story, rejoiced at each of her appearances to see her alive, we feared for her.”
An investigation by UK research group Forensic Architecture concluded Hassouna's death was the result of a targeted attack – the missiles dropped by the Israeli military had "specifically targeted the Hassouna family’s apartment on Floor 2" of the five-floor building.The Israel Defense Forces stated they targeted "a Hamas member involved in attacks against Israeli soldiers", claiming use of precision weapons. Sepideh Farsi rejected this justification, stating: "I know the whole family. It's nonsense".
Haidar al-Ghazali, a Palestinian poet in Gaza, said in a post on Instagram that before she was killed, Hassouna had asked him to write a poem for her when she died.
Speaking of her arrival into a kinder afterlife, it read: “Today’s sun won’t bring harm. The plants in the pots will arrange themselves for a gentle visitor. It will be bright enough to help mothers to dry their laundry quickly, and cool enough for the children to play all day. Today’s sun will not be harsh on anyone.”
