People walk up the stairs to the site of an Israeli strike, minutes before a second strike hit the same spot, killing at least 22 people in total, including five journalists, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. This was one of the last photos taken by journalist Mariam Dagga, who freelanced for The Associated Press and other outlets, before she walked to the site and was killed in the second strike. (AP Photo/Mariam Dagga)

Journalist’s final images show the Gaza hospital stairwell where she was killed by an Israeli strike

The last photos taken by Mariam Dagga show the damaged stairwell outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip where she would be killed by an Israeli strike moments later.

Dagga, a visual journalist who freelanced for The Associated Press, was among 22 people, including five reporters, killed Monday when Israeli forces struck Nasser Hospital twice in quick succession, according to health officials.

The photos, retrieved from her camera on Wednesday, show people walking up the staircase after it was damaged in the first strike while others look out the windows of the main health facility in southern Gaza.

The Israeli military said it targeted what it believed was a Hamas surveillance camera. Witnesses and health officials said the first strike killed a cameraman from the Reuters news agency doing a live television shot and a second person who was not named. A senior Hamas official denied that Hamas was operating a camera at the hospital.

Dagga, 33, and other reporters regularly based themselves at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis during the war. She documented the experiences of ordinary Palestinians who had been displaced from their homes, and doctors who treated wounded or malnourished children.

Algeria’s ambassador to the United Nations, his voice breaking and on the verge of tears, read a letter Wednesday to the U.N. Security Council that Dagga wrote days before she was killed.

It was addressed to her 13-year-old son, Gaith, who left Gaza at the start of the war to live with his father in the United Arab Emirates.

Holding up a photo of Dagga, Amar Bendjama called her “a young and beautiful mother” whose only weapon was a camera.

“Ghaith. You are the heart and soul of your mother,” Bendjama quoted Dagga as writing. “When I die, I want you to pray for me, not to cry for me.”

“I want you never, never to forget me. I did everything to keep you happy and safe and when you grow, when you marry, and when you have a daughter, name her Mariam after me.”

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

People walk up the stairs to the site of an Israeli strike, minutes before a second strike hit the same spot, killing at least 22 people in total, including five journalists, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. This was one of the last photos taken by journalist Mariam Dagga, who freelanced for The Associated Press and other outlets, before she walked to the site and was killed in the second strike. (AP Photo/Mariam Dagga)
Freelance journalist Mariam Dagga, 33, who had been working with the Associated Press and other outlets since the start of the Gaza war, poses for a portrait in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 14, 2024. She was among eight people, including four journalists, killed Monday in an Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
In this family handout photo, a person shows the blood-stained camera that freelance journalist Mariam Dagga, 33, was carrying when she was killed in a double Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. (Family Handout via AP)

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