ABNA24 - The World Association of News Publishers announced the awarding of the 2026 “Golden Pen of Freedom” award to Gaza Strip photographers and video directors affiliated with the three major international news agencies, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, and Reuters.
This high international honor comes in recognition of those who documented the chapters of the ongoing Israeli war of genocide, risking their lives to convey the truth to the world in light of Israel’s systematic prevention of the entry of foreign journalists.
The coastal city of Marseille, southern France, hosted the award ceremony on June 1, on the sidelines of the 77th World News Media Congress.
Palestinian journalists represent their heroic colleagues in the field, as photographers, Mohammed Salem (Reuters), Fatima Shbair (Associated Press), and Mohammed Al-Baba (Agence France-Presse) were selected to receive the award on behalf of the companions of the pen and camera.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Palestinian photographer Mohammed Al-Baba, who spent seven months documenting the massacres in Gaza before leaving the Strip, stressed that this award carries great humanitarian and professional significance.
Al-Baba said with a tone full of pride and sorrow, “This award is never specific to living photographers, rather it includes everyone, it includes the journalists who were martyred, the wounded, the detainees, the disappeared, and those who are still in Gaza, and those are the spearhead.”
Al-Baba added, explaining the historical impact of their lenses that shook global public opinion, “If it were not for the pictures and if it were not for the videos, this change in the world would not have happened, these works contributed to changing the minds of the world and the global journalistic mentality.” This award comes at a time when the World Association described Gaza journalists as “victims of the conflict as much as they are historians of a war that broke out around them.”
Reports by Reporters Without Borders confirm the enormity of the price paid by the Palestinian journalistic body, as more than 260 journalists have been martyred by Israeli occupation army fire since the start of the war in October 2023.
/129
Your Comment