Wael, A Name for Every Character
Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory - W
I watch videos of people hugging Wael Al Dahdouh. A girl runs to him and he hugs her to his side. Wael is in the street and an elderly woman tells him Gaza is not beautiful without him.
Wael is in his press jacket, a microphone in his hand, Wael, who lost his wife and children in an airstrike, who learnt of their deaths as he was about to go live.
Samer Abudaqa, his cameraman, was left to bleed to death for five hours by the Israeli army, as Wael was rushed to hospital after being shot in the arm.
His arm is bandaged as he stands at the front in a line of men about to pray before Samer is put into the ground. Samer’s press jacket is on top of the coffin, a jacket that acts as a target for the Israelis rather than the deterrent it should be.
Wael wears his own press jacket everywhere, a detail that protects none of the journalists who are in Gaza, cameras about to roll. If anything, it announces their presence, and they are deliberately picked out in Israeli attacks.
I call him Wael because he is familiar the way overseas family might be, like an uncle I have not yet met.
If I henceforth name my characters Wael and Samer, I make no apologies for the overuse.
They are heroes to me and I want to believe they will never die.