Palestinian photographer wins prize for Gaza coverage



Palestinian photographer Mahmud Hams has won the prestigious Visa d’Or News prize for his coverage of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza. Hams, 44, has worked for France’s AFP news agency in the besieged Palestinian territory since 2003. He denounced the targeting of journalists during the conflict.

“I spent my childhood in Gaza and in 23 years of photojournalism, I have witnessed every war, every conflict there. But this war is unlike any other,” said Hams in a statement.

“Many journalists have been killed; others wounded. I’ve also lost friends and loved ones. We struggled to keep our families safe,” he said. “I hope the photos we take show the world that this war, and the suffering, must end.”

Eric Baradat, a deputy news director at AFP, paid tribute to Hams’s work.

“Mahmud and his colleagues, photographers and journalists from AFP in the Gaza Strip have carried out extraordinary work in every respect, considering the conditions in which they lived with their families and loved ones,” said Baradat.

“It is staggering and often unimaginable. Their testimony will be recorded in history.”

Here’s a selection of some of his work from Gaza. Hams left Gaza in February.


<sub>Palestinians collect food at a donation point in a refugee camp in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 23


A photograph taken by Mahmud Hams in January 2024 shows Palestinian newlyweds celebrating their wedding at a UNRWA school in Rafah


In January, Hams also documented Israel’s ground invasion of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip


Palestinians mourn their dead at Al-Najjar hospital after identifying the bodies of their relatives killed in overnight Israeli bombardment of Rafah on February</sub>

Jabalia resident asks Israelis why after deadly attack

Earlier, we reported that at least eight people were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli air attack on the Halimah al-Saadiyah School, which sheltered war-displaced Palestinians, in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.

More details have now emerged.

“The two missiles targeted a tent, not even a concrete building or a tunnel,” said witness Ahmed Abd Abbo. “We came down among all the people killed and were scared, including a woman preparing milk for her child.”

He asked for an explanation from Israel’s military as to why it would attack defenceless civilians. “Isn’t the siege, hunger and destruction we’ve experienced enough?”

Gaza NGO decries deadly Israeli air strike on staff member’s home

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), a Gaza-based NGO, condemned an Israeli attack on the apartment of its administrative assistant Ihab Marwan Kamal Faisal.

The attack in northern Gaza City brought the building down on top residents, injuring Faisal, his wife and their two daughters. It killed two of his brother-in-laws, PCHR said.

Faisal lost two of his brothers during the war in October 2023 in a previous Israeli attack on a shelter for displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

“[Israeli forces] continue to target the remaining homes where civilians and displaced people have sought refuge, destroying them on top of their residents,” PCHR said.

🚨The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the ongoing Israeli genocidal campaign against the #Gaza Strip and the airstrike on the apartment of our colleague, Ihab Marwan Kamal Faisal, PCHR’s administrative assistant, destroying it on top of its residents.… pic.twitter.com/Yw78SskCYB

— Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - PCHR (@pchrgaza) September 7, 2024

Israel’s West Bank raids seek to sideline Palestinian Authority: Ex-diplomat

Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, says he doesn’t believe the Netanyahu government plans to annex the entire West Bank during its latest military incursion because of the sticky issue of governance over the large Palestinian population.

But, he said, it’s clear the Israeli government is attempting to sideline the Palestinian Authority.

“This government is intent on weakening the Palestinian Authority. A few months ago – even though everyone stopped talking about it – there was a plan for post-war Gaza with the Palestinian Authority extending its governance from the West Bank,” Pinkas told Al Jazeera.

“With this [West Bank] operation, Israel is weakening the Palestinian Authority to the point where there’s not going to be anyone to negotiate with. And that is the grand plan that the government has.”

‘It’s absurd to ask the perpetrator of a genocide for a ceasefire’

Miko Peled, from the Palestine House of Freedom, says that the large protests in Israel will not have a tangible effect on the war on Gaza because the fundamental demand to stop the mass killing of Palestinians is absent.

“It’s a group within Israeli society that doesn’t like Netanyahu’s policies and has been trying to push him away but his majority in the Knesset is solid, his support from the right is solid, and really, if these protesters were serious about releasing the hostages, they would focus on ending the mass killing of Palestinians,” he said.

“Since there’s no real concern being expressed for the fate and safety and security of Palestinians who are being butchered by the tens of thousands in Gaza and the West Bank. I don’t believe these protests are serious.

“It’s absurd to ask the perpetrator of a genocide for a ceasefire. The asks are the wrong asks. The premise for the negotiations is the wrong premise. There has to be an absolute clear demand to end the killing of Palestinians. Nothing short of that is going to bring about any change,” Peled told Al Jazeera.

Three killed in Israeli airstrike were emergency workers, Lebanon says. Israel says it targeted terrorists

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/07/middleeast/israel-airstrike-lebanon-intl-latam/index.html

Three people have been killed and two wounded in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon, authorities in the country said Saturday.

The Lebanese Ministry of Public health said three emergency workers were killed in the attack as they tried to contain a fire in the town of Froun, Nabatieh district. It said the attack was the second time an ambulance team had been targeted within 12 hours and was a violation of international law.

However, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strike had “eliminated terrorists” from the Amal movement, a Hezbollah-allied Shia group. The Amal movement released a statement saying two of its members had been killed “while performing their humanitarian and national duty in defense of Lebanon and the South.”

Lebanon PM demands emergency meet with Western ambassadors after Israeli strike

Prime Minister Najib Mikati demanded an urgent meeting with Western ambassadors after a deadly Israeli attack on Civil Defence personnel in southern Lebanon.

“Based on the principle that the Israeli enemy disregards international laws and norms, I have called for an urgent meeting with Western ambassadors and representatives of international organizations at the government palace on Monday,” he said in a statement.

The aim of the meeting is “to hold everyone accountable for stopping the ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanon and to pressure the Israeli enemy, which ignores any law and continues to fuel its crimes against Lebanon and the Lebanese people”.

Earlier, three paramedics were killed and two others wounded in the attack, which hit a fire truck in southern Lebanon.

British journalist busts Israeli propaganda, teaches BBC ethics in journalism

Video clips of brave British journalist Afshin Rattansi giving grief to Israeli guest have gone viral.

BBC sinks to new low as corporation stunned by revelation on pro-Israel biases

A report by Guardian newspaper said that the BBC had blocked any efforts to run DEC appeal on British TV channels to raise millions of pounds to help Palestinian victims.

Four Palestinians killed in attack on Jabalia refugee camp

Four Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli bombing of a house in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the north of the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent reports.


Deputy director of Gaza civil defence killed along with family in Jabalia

Abu al-Abd Morsi, the deputy director of the Palestinian Civil Defence in the North Gaza governorate, has been killed along with members of his family in a bombing in the al-Alami area of the Jabalia refugee camp, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting.

More Israeli attacks reported in Gaza City

The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza City says two more Israeli attacks have taken place in northern Gaza. Israeli forces targeted homes belonging to the Qarout and al-Fakhouri families in the Sabra area, near al-Istijabah Mosque south of Gaza City

Officials are saying that the bodies of four people who were killed in the attack on the Qarout family home have been recovered.

Israel launches ‘bloody attack’ on Khan Younis

It was a very bloody attack carried out by Israeli fighter jets, that had launched a strike using three missiles that completely destroyed a number of residences, including houses and a tower, in the southern part of the Gaza city of Khan Younis.

At least two Palestinians have been confirmed killed, including a woman and her daughter. The attack also left a great deal of destruction. Rubble is scattered around the site of the strike, where families around the neighbouring area are going through shock and fear due to the strike.

Khan Younis has been a focus of Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours. Witnesses have confirmed that Israeli quadcopters were used extensively to attack al-Mawasi. Families there have been trapped in a tiny patch of land after the Israeli military incursion of Rafah district.

Top Harris aide says ‘seeking more information’ about American activist killed in West Bank

Phil Gordon, the national security adviser to US Vice President Kamala Harris, has said the White House is still “seeking more information” about the killing of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest against an illegal Israeli settlement.

“We deplore the death of – an American citizen – in the West Bank, and we send our deepest condolences to her family and loved ones,” Gordon added, in a post on X.

Gordon’s brief comments came more than 24 hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters, “First things first – let’s find out exactly what happened”, in response to questions about Eygi’s death.

The 26-year-old activist’s family have said she was “peacefully standing for justice when she was killed by a bullet that video shows came from an Israeli military shooter” and have called for an independent investigation and full accountability for her killing.

Israeli settlers vandalise olive trees in West Bank

Israeli settlers destroyed about 12 olive trees near the Palestinian village of Deir Istiya, in the occupied West Bank governorate of Salfit, on Saturday, local sources told the Wafa news agency.

The settlers from the illegal Israeli Yakir outpost north of Salfit came back to destroy the trees belonging to Palestinian resident, Musleh Youssef Mansour, after earlier vandalising about 20 of his other olive trees, Wafa added.

Palestinians have cultivated olive trees for thousands of years and traditionally begin the annual harvest to make olive oil in September.

The UN humanitarian agency said Israeli travel restrictions and attacks on olive groves meant Palestinian farmers lost approximately 1,200 metric tonnes of olive oil from last year’s harvest.