Photographing Gaza: A Case Study in the Politics of Photojournalism and Portraiture
Gaza-born photographer and influencer Motaz Azaiza stated that “as humans, we all have a responsibility to bear witness to what is happening in Gaza.” His words ring true amidst concerns in some circles that stories from Gaza are receiving less sympathetic media attention than Israeli stories, and that the conflict as a whole is being forgotten as the major news outlets chase fresher, more lucrative stories. In France, coverage of the Israel-Hamas war as a whole has dramatically decreased on mainstream channels. In the world of photojournalism, however, Palestinian stories are being recognized and uplifted.
In August, France’s top photojournalism festival, Visa pour l’Image, honored Palestinian photojournalists with prestigious awards. This includes the News Award won by Mahmud Hams, the Rémi Ochlik Award won by Loay Ayyoub, and the Daily Press Award won by Samar Elouf. Louis Aliot, the conservative mayor of the festival’s host town, refused to award Ayyoub due to his alleged controversial coverage of the conflict.
Elouf, whose work is frequently featured in the New York Times, also won the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism award from the International Women’s Media Foundation in March. Additionally, Reuters’ photojournalist Mohammed Salem’s image of a Gazan aunt mourning her niece just 10 days after October 7 won the 2024 World Press Photo of the Year Award. Similarly, Bisan Owda of Al Jazeera’s It's Bisan from Gaza and I'm Still Alive won three awards including an Emmy for her documentation of deteriorating conditions of the region.
The long-debated ethics of photojournalism is absolutely relevant in the discussion of photography from Gaza. As the renowned art critic John Berger explains in his essay “Photographs of Agony,” the assumed purpose of photojournalism is “to awaken concern.” Azaiza’s call for us to “bear witness” mirrors this. Although Berger argues that images of tragedy are raw and purely human, he also recognizes the appeal of violent sensationalism. The reality is that audiences, from the general public to the jury of photography competitions, reward gruesome images. Pulitzer prizes are most often awarded to photographers whose images are of violent or shocking moments. The winners of the World Press Photo of the Year are almost all of conflict, death, and destruction. Mohammed Salem’s photograph marks the fourth winning image with Palestinian subjects, the first being in 1977. Of these four winning images, two depict the bodies of murdered children and the other two contain imagery of guns.
In 1988, researcher Robert Baker discovered that news agencies were more than twice as likely to select and run “very graphic” images of an event if located over 200 miles from the incident’s occurrence. Given the thousands of miles between Gaza and major Western journalism cities such as Los Angeles, New York, London, and Paris, many news consumers in the West are viewing the most gruesome images. Gaza’s photojournalists are confronted with an obstacle that every photojournalist has grappled with before: the duty to expose the truth without exploiting the suffering subject or, to the other extreme, glossing over graphic details.
The most unique and devastating element in Gaza’s case is that very few foreign journalists have access to the area. Thus, Palestinians alone are forced to capture the suffering of their community. In an interview with CNN, Elouf explained that “being a journalist in Gaza feels like you’re dying on the inside over and over again.” It becomes difficult to follow specific clauses in the Code of Ethics for Visual Journalists, such as remaining unobtrusive and avoiding political association, when one arrives to capture the aftermath of a bombing to discover that their family member or neighbor was its victim.
In a photograph for the New York Times, Elouf recorded her friend and fellow photojournalist, Mohammed Aloul, holding one of his four children killed in an airstrike. Elouf recalls crying behind the camera as she took the picture. Hams captured the same moment, reflecting that “all I could do was to be there, with him, crying.”
Beyond the harsh mental cost of completing journalistic work in Gaza, reports also reveal the physical risk of the job. A UN investigation from February recorded the deaths of four Israeli journalists, three Lebanese journalists, and more than 122 journalists and media workers in Gaza. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) now reports 141 journalist deaths in their database, seven of which they determined to be targeted attacks. According to the CPJ, this is the “deadliest period for journalists” since the database’s inception in 1992. Despite the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) denial of any deliberate elimination of the press, Palestinian journalists firmly believe they are being targeted in their press-identified uniforms and vehicles. This belief, if true, would amount to the serious accusation that the IDF is breaking international law. In an open letter signed by the heads of thirty-six respected news agencies, the signatories call for more protections for Gaza’s journalists so essential in telling the truth “about the situation inside Gaza.”
In addition to recording the state of Gaza, Palestinian photojournalists are creating more impactful and intimate photographs due to their proximity to their subjects. Elouf, who said she sees a soul in each photograph, aims to capture a story, not just a moment in time. For Anne Paq, a Palestine-based French photographer, her 2014 series titled “Obliterated Families” aimed to share such stories by including detailed captions about the documented subjects. Paq’s works allow her subjectsa legacy and individuality far more dignified than a number in a statistic.Due to shared circumstances, photojournalists in Gaza have a nuanced understanding of their subjects that enables them to honor their subjects.
A common thread among Palestinian photographers is their interest in capturing moments of joy instead of tragedy. Like countless others, Elouf divulged a craving for the life in Gaza that she knew before incessant conflict. Her photography career began with the goal to highlight the beauty of Gaza and the insistence of the Palestinian people in living optimistically. Azaiza, despite his large social media following, claims to have never wanted celebrity status and instead wishes to be known for his art. Before the war, Azaiza took portraits of simple, everyday moments in Palestinian life. In an interview, he said, “I miss taking photographs of children playing on the swings, the elderly smiling… my beautiful Gaza.”
Photographs of joyful moments can combat negative portrayals of Palestine. Palestinian-American photographer Adam Rouhana wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in which he explained his drive to create positive images to counter the media’s portrayal of the Palestinian people as violent terrorists or expendable additions to statistics. “By decolonizing photography,” he explained, “we can decolonize our minds and achieve a more nuanced understanding of Palestinian reality.” Rouhana’s photography project “Before Freedom” exploring these ideas was recognized at the Belfast Photo Festival of 2024.
To Rouhana, the action of taking a photograph pushes back against erasure. He claims that the photographers and photojournalists of Gaza “are building a contemporary Palestinian visuality, with an active ethic of self-determination.” For now, they have no choice but to document their gruesome reality instead of following visions of beauty. As Ariella Azoulay argues in her essay “The Execution Portrait,” any photograph taken under such violent context will capture the situation’s brutality regardless of what it literally depicts. The author believes that no image from Gaza can be free of horror until the end of the conflict.