We can’t know what ran through their minds when they received word they’d be leaving Gaza.
We can only guess what they felt as news broke of fellow journalists—working for various mostly Western media outlets — killed in precisely the places they themselves had been reporting from just weeks earlier.
We can’t begin to imagine what they thought when they left Gaza and set out toward country of Jordan, only for their vehicle to be attacked by terrorists.
Nor do we know what they were thinking after nearly two years of brutal war and a fraught, uncertain extraction—when they found themselves in Serbia. Or how they felt when they finally left.
But one thing we do know: A group of journalists working for American network NBC—and several of their family members—managed to evacuate after numerous diplomatic complications. And Serbia wasn’t just a stop on their journey. Serbia played a critical role in making it happen.
This information has been confirmed by multiple sources: first from Serbian diplomatic circles directly involved in the operation, and then from American sources as well.
Soon it will be two years since the horrific October 7th terrorist attack carried out by Hamas, the group that governed the Gaza Strip. That attack triggered a brutal response from Israeli forces—one that has led to widespread accusations of war crimes and severely damaged Israel’s international standing (a detail that will later prove important in this story).
We first received unverified reports in the second half of August: that journalists working for a major US network were being evacuated from Gaza with help from Serbia. Around the same time, the safety of journalists in Gaza had become a matter of urgent international concern.
On August 21, the Media Freedom Coalition called on Israel to allow foreign media access, especially in light of the “escalating humanitarian crisis.” In their statement, they condemned “any violence against journalists and media workers,” as reports emerged that a growing number of journalists had been killed in Gaza. The appeal was signed by 27 countries, including France, Germany, and the UK.
From the start of the war, Israel had blocked any independent access to Gaza for journalists, foreign outlets reported—only allowing tightly supervised entries under IDF control.
From the start of the war, Israel had blocked independent media access to Gaza—foreign media reported. Journalists were only allowed in through controlled IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) visits. The number of journalists killed, according to Palestinian organizations, was approaching 200—and some reports said it had already surpassed that figure. Most were Palestinians.
Because access was so restricted, international TV stations, news agencies, and newspapers were largely relying on local “fixers” and correspondents—in other words, Palestinians.
Their employers often tried to get them to safety, but evacuating local Palestinians in an active war zone is never a simple task.
A few days after August 21, Israeli missiles struck one of Gaza’s main hospitals—Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern part of Gaza Strip. On Monday, August 25, that became the top story in most global media. The hospital was hit twice: in the first strike, two people were killed; when rescuers and journalists arrived at the scene, a second strike killed 18 more (the final death toll was 21), including five media workers affiliated with AP, Al Jazeera, Reuters… Israel called it a “tragic incident.”
It wasn’t the first time Israeli forces targeted civilian infrastructure—one of the central controversies of this war. Israel claims that hospitals are being used as human shields by Hamas. Just two weeks earlier, six Al Jazeera reporters were killed in an attack on another hospital.
The next day, August 26—with conflicting reports circulating, including unverified claims that NBC journalists were among the victims—our source told us that the NBC-affiliated journalists being evacuated through Serbia were safe. By that point, they were already in Serbia, and NBC was working on transferring them from there.
So our first solid information about “NBC journalists being evacuated via Serbia” came while they were still in the country.
False leads and unverifiable accounts flooded in, one after another. Among them, a report that NBC-affiliated journalists had quietly arrived in Serbia. It was a closely guarded secret—understandably so, and tightly managed by the evacuation team. That secrecy is also why it took so long to piece this story together.
One source told us they’d need two weeks at most to complete the evacuation. In the end, it took even less.
In the last days of August, we received a message from the source:
“All NBC personnel and their family members have left Serbia.”
That’s when the threads began to unravel.
After weeks of effort, these journalists left Gaza with the help of diplomatic channels coordinated through Serbia’s embassy in Washington. They were able to exit Gaza using travel documents issued by Serbia.
In direct communication with NBC, we received a response stating that they could not comment on the matter, as it is their policy not to discuss the movements and travel of their employees.
This, of course, was no ordinary journey.
But the silence—even from a media outlet—is understandable, given the sensitivity of the situation.
After several exchanged emails and phone calls with sources independent of the “Serbian side,” we were able to confirm that the evacuation had in fact taken place, and that Serbia had provided assistance in a situation where many other countries were either unwilling or simply unable to help. (Our source confirmed that Serbia was not the only country the US side had approached.)
So how did Serbia become involved in all this?
The story traces back to early July, to a diplomatic reception in Washington, D.C.
Serbian media had published a photo of Serbia’s ambassador to the United States, Dragan Šutanovac, engaged in a “friendly conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” The photo first appeared on the Serbian Embassy’s social media accounts in Washington.
There’s no need to spell out how polarizing a figure Netanyahu is today—both globally and within diplomatic circles in many Western countries.
In the photo, Šutanovac and Netanyahu are seated across from each other, more like two colleagues grabbing a beer after work than participants in a formal diplomatic meeting—leaning in just enough to convey a slightly more relaxed tone than protocol might usually allow.
We can only speculate on the full scope of their conversation. The embassy’s official statement mentions that “special attention was given to humanitarian issues, including the case of Alon Ohel, an Israeli–Serbian dual citizen held captive by Hamas since October 2023.” But for this particular story, the details of that conversation aren’t what matter.
What matters is that the meeting happened at all.
According to one source, Netanyahu didn’t have many eager conversation partners at that diplomatic reception. In fact, Šutanovac was reportedly the only member of the diplomatic corps who “sat down and spoke with him.”
That caught the attention of people from NBC News, who had been looking for a way to extract their staff from Gaza. Their Washington bureau had been trying to find the right diplomatic channel for weeks.
Seeing that Šutanovac was the only one conversing with Netanyahu, a producer from NBC approached him during the reception and asked for help.
It seems the motivation was precisely that—that he had been seen engaging in serious conversation with the Israeli prime minister. Another source confirmed that NBC had previously tried other diplomatic routes.
To put it simply, they were looking for someone who had a good enough relationship with the Israelis to help—and they hoped they’d found that in Serbia’s ambassador.
Theoretically, Serbia is in a unique position: it officially recognizes Palestine, but it also maintains strong ties with Israel—strong enough, for example, that Israeli sports teams were playing their European matches in Serbia during the war.
But theory is one thing. In practice, situations like these are far more complicated—especially when goodwill alone isn’t enough.
It probably wasn’t an enviable position for the ambassador of a small country, where any intervention in such a conflict can have unpredictable consequences. Still, our source says Šutanovac consulted with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the President. Once he received the green light, Serbia’s side of the operation could begin.
The mission involved a total of eight individuals—five working for NBC, and three of their family members.
The intention was there. But the real work was just beginning.
Serbia received all the necessary information about the individuals involved, including full contact details—phone numbers, emails. This was crucial: before they could even begin to operationalize the evacuation plan and secure Israeli permission for them to leave Gaza, they had to verify that none of the eight were on any lists of suspected Hamas collaborators.
Each person was vetted individually, and after they passed the checks, Serbia issued them travel documents.
But then began a race against time. Civilian evacuations from Gaza happen only twice a month. In addition to Serbia and Israel, Lebanon and Jordan also had to be involved in the plan, since the evacuees would need to pass through those countries—adding layers of complexity to the operation.
Diplomatic paperwork began circulating between Serbia, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel’s COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories)—a body under the Israeli Ministry of Defense that also oversees humanitarian affairs in the West Bank. So the bureaucracy of the West Bank had to be looped in, too, to ensure that the eight Palestinians had a clear route to Jordan.
Naturally, Serbia’s embassy in Israel and the Israeli government were involved as well. Documents were exchanged in circles until the operation was finally approved.
And then came bad news.
Approval was granted for only six individuals to leave Gaza.
Two technical staffers working for NBC were not on the list. Only three journalists and three family members had received permission.
In New York, at NBC headquarters, alarm bells went off.
Suddenly, they were facing an even more difficult and sensitive situation. They entered into “intensive communication” with Serbia’s embassy and Ambassador Šutanovac. According to our source, at one point NBC even considered scrapping the entire operation if all eight couldn’t be evacuated.
Whether that was a negotiating tactic—“all or none”—or a panicked reaction to bad news is hard to say. But it worked.
Still, it was far from simple.
As described to us, NBC called the ambassador; the ambassador called everyone he could, trying to get the two technicians added to the list.
For two days, uncertainty reigned. And then—after multiple interventions “from all sides”—clearance was granted for all eight.
And then—bad news struck again.
One of the evacuees was injured, and there was little information about their medical condition.
No one knew how to organize transportation for them, especially considering the route was already demanding enough.
When that was finally resolved, it was time to wrap up the operation. A vehicle carrying all eight evacuees was prepped and ready—first stop, Jordan. In Belgrade, Washington, and New York, everyone was waiting for word that they had successfully exited Israel.
But—no surprise—bad news arrived again. This time, far worse.
According to information from the field, Hamas militants opened fire on the vehicle, forcing it to turn back.
Still, they refused to give up. On the second attempt, they made it through to Jordan.
This is not a story with a happy ending.
Yes, for this group of eight, things ended well—thanks in large part to Serbia’s embassy in Washington, and to Serbia’s sometimes hard-to-define international positioning. But stories coming out of Gaza do not have happy endings.
Nor do stories involving journalists.
On September 4, UN experts Francesca Albanese and Irene Khan “expressed deep outrage over the killing of six more Palestinian journalists—including two women—in a series of Israeli attacks on Gaza over the past ten days.” (Those „ten days“ included the hospital strike in Khan Yunis.)
They reported that “at least 248 journalists have been killed in Gaza so far—more than in any other conflict in modern history.”
***
The eight Palestinians at the heart of this story made it out of war-torn Gaza.
Once they left Serbia, the NBC journalists moved on to other safe locations—it hardly matters now who went where.
We can say this much: one cameraman who worked for NBC in Gaza later settled in Egypt.
Among those killed in the Nasser Hospital strike in Khan Yunis was Mariam Abu Daqa, a contributor to multiple media outlets, including the AP.
Mariam and the NBC cameraman had been close friends. He now faced a final, devastating task.
Mariam and the cameraman had exchanged testaments—a pact that if one of them died, the other would deliver their final message to their family.
Through tears—and this is a story impossible to recount without emotion—the cameraman read Mariam’s message to her son. In it, she said, among other things:
“If you have a daughter one day, name her after me.”
After everything, our source sent us a simple message:
“This could’ve happened to them too.”
They made it out of Gaza alive.
But from the beginning, it was clear—this was never going to be a story with a happy ending.
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