Best photographic news reporting from abroad in any medium
Award Year: 2024
Award Name: The Olivier Rebbot Award 2024
Recipient: Samar Abu Elouf
Affiliation: The New York Times
Honored Work: “Out of Gaza”
Abu Elouf’s poignant and powerful portraits of survivors of the Gaza war stood out for their authenticity and empathy. Her personal connection to the story, having lived through the war in Gaza herself and spending months with the people she photographed, brings a depth and nuance to the images that is both haunting and humbling. Abu Elouf’s sensitive and wrenching portraits capture the almost unimaginable cost of the war on human lives, particularly children. The photographs are not just a testament to the resilience of the human spirit but also a reminder of the devastating consequences of conflict.
An Israeli airstrike cost Mahmoud Ajjour, 9, his arms. The other was badly injured. Today, Mahmoud is learning to write and eat with his feet. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Wafa Abu Semaan, 27, was pregnant when an airstrike in Gaza killed her husband and took her leg. She and her 5-year-old daughter, Maryam, were evacuated to Egypt, where she gave birth to Raft. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Ruba Abu Jibba, 19, lost an eye during shelling as her family was fleeing Israeli tanks in Gaza, she says. She ended up under the rubble, trapped among the bodies of her dead siblings for four days as fighting raged nearby. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Nusaiba Kleib, 9, lost her leg while fleeing Israeli shelling. Now in Qatar, she moves around in a toy
car with her prosthetic leg in the back. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Darin al-Bayaa, 11, and her brother, Kinan, 5, survived an air assault near their Gaza home. Their parents and another brother were killed. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Neighbors found Ibrahim Qudeih, a 21-year-old nursing student, with wounds so serious they thought he was dead. “I had no limbs to stand on,” he said. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Passant al-Louh, 17, suffered severe burns to her face and lost her right ear in an airstrike that killed her parents. “I grieve for myself and the life I used to have,” she says. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Ibrahim al-Dahouk, 15, was at home in Gaza City when he was injured by an explosion. Desperate to save Ibrahim’s arm, his father pushed him to a hospital in a wheelchair. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Abdullah al-Haj, a photographer, lost both legs in an airstrike as he was taking pictures of two fishermen emerging from the sea with their catch. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
At age 5, Amir Abu Dayeh was laid on a hospital floor with the dead. “Unknown martyr,” a worker had written on his chest, said his mother, Angham Nasrallah. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Shrapnel from an airstrike destroyed one of 7-year-old Yazid Hamoudeh’s eyes. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
At the age of 2, Melisya Joudeh lost her mother, father, brother, uncles, five cousins, grandmother and two aunts in an airstrike. Photo by Samar Abu Elouf
Citation for Excellence:
Odelyn Joseph and Ramon Espinosa
The Associated Press
“Haiti: Surviving in Gangland”