The widow of Gaza journalist Roshdi Sarraj has condemned Liberal senator Sarah Henderson for alleging that her late husband was a Hamas militant, describing the claim as “disturbing and callous”.
Mr Sarraj, who had worked on production for Australia’s ABC since 2018, was killed in an Israeli strike in October 2023. His widow, award-winning journalist Shrouq Aila, said he had been the father of their 11-month-old daughter at the time of his death.
“It is deeply distressing that three years into a genocide there are still people in powerful positions who would repeat such lies and distorted facts on the ground,” Ms Aila told AAP from Gaza.
“How can she justify the killing of a father of an 11-month-old daughter at the time with shrapnel severing his body by calling him a terrorist?”
Ms Aila said she felt angry that, after enduring displacement, grief and famine while raising their daughter without her father, she was hearing Senator Henderson disparage her late husband.
The accusation was made during a heated Senate estimates hearing, when Senator Henderson held up a document bearing an Israeli Defence Forces logo while questioning ABC executives about their employment of journalists.
“It’s incumbent on you to ensure that you’re not hiring journalists who work for a terrorist organisation… this person has been identified as a fighter in the Hamas military wing,” she said.
Senator Henderson later withdrew part of her claim, saying she had “incorrectly” identified the Palestinian journalist and had written to the parliamentary committee to correct the record in Hansard.
“While the IDF concluded Mr Al-Sarraj was a Hamas military operative, I incorrectly said he held a Hamas ID card,” she said.
AAP contacted Senator Henderson for comment but did not receive a reply.
The ABC said it had approached the IDF for evidence supporting the allegation but had not been provided with any.
“The ABC has asked the IDF for information that would confirm its allegation that Roshdi Sarraj was part of the Hamas military. None has been provided,” an ABC spokesperson said.
The broadcaster said Mr Sarraj had been recommended for production work in Gaza by other United Nations agencies. It also said it had discussed the claim with the Committee to Protect Journalists, which continues to list him among 189 journalists killed in Gaza.
A United Nations human rights commission has concluded that Israel was responsible for genocide in Gaza, where more than 73,000 people, including 20,000 children, have been killed, according to the source material. Israel has rejected that characterisation, following Hamas’s cross-border attack in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 hostages were captured.
