As the world marks International Women’s Day, the airwaves of global media are filled with symbolic gestures and pompous rhetoric about women’s rights. Statistics are touted, initiatives are celebrated and hashtags are boosted.

Meanwhile, the true oppressors of women are whitewashed, their crimes are covered up and those who resist them are smeared.

For daring to challenge the occupation, Gaza’s women journalists have paid a heavy price. More than 20 of the 270 journalists and media workers murdered by Israel were women.

Among them is Mariam Abu Daqqa, who was targeted by the Israeli army along with other journalists at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in August. She worked as a field correspondent for years, documenting the suffering of Palestinians under siege and then reporting on the realities of the genocidal war.

Mariam was not just a courageous journalist but also a loving daughter and mother. When she was younger, she donated one of her kidneys to her father, who was struggling with kidney disease.

She was fully dedicated to her son, Ghaith. During the war, she made the painful decision to send him abroad so he would be safe.

Four months before Mariam was murdered, the Israeli occupation assassinated another brilliant photojournalist: Fatima Hassouna.

“If I die, I want a resounding death. I do not want to be just breaking news or a number among many. I want a death the world hears about, an impact that lasts through time, and images that time and place cannot bury,” Fatima wrote on social media before her death.

As a talented young photojournalist, she had a bright future to look forward to. She was also months away from getting married.