for women human rights defenders from war and conflict
ARE
The Palestinian women journalists
in
GAZA
Today, Tuesday 8th October, RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in WAR) celebrates the courage of all Palestinian women journalists, courageously striving to report the truth in the midst of ongoing conflict. This year’s award is being given against the background of the multi-faceted humanitarian crisis and conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, centred on Gaza but with an ever-worsening situation in the West Bank.
On the 18th anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya’s murder in October 2006, RAW in WAR honours the Palestinian women journalists in Gaza with the 2024 Anna Politkovskaya Award for their bravery in speaking out, and in defying injustice, violence and war crimes in the context of the ongoing war.
The RAW in WAR Nominations Committee for the 2024 Anna Politkovskaya Award is deeply humbled by the selfless and determined persistence with which these women journalists, despite great personal risk to themselves, have reported on the plight of the civilians and stood up for humanity amidst grave human rights violations and war crimes, committed, as we speak, across Gaza.
On announcing the winners of the 2024 Anna Politkovskaya Award, Belarusian writer and Nobel Prize laureate, Svetlana Alexievich, 2018 Anna Politkovskaya Award winner and a member of the 2024 Award Nominations Committee, said:
” While the military and politicians speak the language of war, women journalists defend life, risking their own lives under shelling. They are saving life itself. They tell us the truth about the suffering of their people. Women are always defending life, because life comes into this world through women.”
The Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, during which 1,195 people, including 36 children, were killed and 251 were taken hostage or captive, resulted in an Israeli military response causing mass civilian casualties in Gaza. In June 2024 the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel found the military wing of Hamas and six other Palestinian armed groups responsible for war crimes. At the same time, the Commission found Israeli authorities responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the military operations and attacks taking place in Gaza since 7 October 2023.
By September 2024, it was reported that over 95,000 people had been injured in Gaza, with 41,000 people killed there and more than 600 Palestinians killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. An estimated 1.9 million people, out of a population of 2.2 million, had been displaced in Gaza. Over 1,000 Israelis had reportedly been killed and over 5,000 injured.
“The deadliest, most dangerous conflict for journalists in recent history.” So concluded five UN-appointed human rights experts in February 2024, expressing alarm at “the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers … killed, attacked, injured and detained in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in Gaza.” They were disturbed by reports that journalists had come under attack “despite being clearly identifiable in jackets and helmets marked “press” or travelling in well-marked press vehicles” and expressed grave concern that Israel refused to let media from outside Gaza enter and report unless embedded with the Israeli forces. They also found that harassment, intimidation and attacks on journalists in the occupied West Bank had increased since 7 October.
Following an Israeli military offensive launched on 27 August 2024 incidents of violence, harassment, intimidation and obstruction of journalists in the West Bank escalated. By mid-September there were reports that at least 29 journalists had been detained by Israeli forces in the West Bank, and three by the Palestinian Authority, as well as reports of journalists, including women journalists, being subjected to torture and ill-treatment while in Israeli detention, including sexual and gender-based violence.
Palestinian journalists in Gaza, both male and female, along with the general civilian population, have been living in a dire humanitarian situation, struggling to survive against a background of Israeli bombardments from the air and land, ground operations with heavy fighting, mass displacement, destruction of houses and other civilian infrastructure, communications blackouts, accompanied by chronic shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicines.
With Israel banning foreign journalists from entering Gaza independently, Palestinian journalists, many of them women, who are covering the news on the ground in Gaza have become the only voice and the sole source of reporting from within the Gaza Strip.
Journalists carrying out news gathering activities, often without proper protection, equipment or communications, risk death or injury on a daily basis. The overall number of journalists and media workers killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023 is reported to be over 150, with dozens attacked or injured. The proportion of those killed or injured while covering the conflict is difficult to establish, given local conditions, but it is certain that women journalists are among their number.
On the honouring of the Palestinian women journalists, Sky News Special Correspondent Alex Crawford, 2019 Award winner, said:
“There is no body of people more deserving of this accolade than the Palestinian journalists. They have been outstanding – beyond words. They have carved a path of stunning integrity and truth in the most unimaginable horrific circumstances and endured pressures and terrific suffering and loss beyond most people’s imagination. I cannot say enough how incredibly proud as well as completely humbled and utterly indebted we are to them: as a journalist, as a woman. They have been the world’s only window into what’s happening inside Gaza. Without them we simply would not know.
I’m so utterly ashamed they’ve been so let down and left to do this all on their own without their fellow colleagues from around the world giving them support and bolstering their essential work. We will keep fighting for you dear colleagues. We will not forget what you’ve been through. We will not forget what you’ve done. To many of us – more than you will ever know – you really are our heroes. You exemplify just what it is to be a journalist. Anna would most certainly approve.”
The shooting in August 2024 of Salma Al Qaddoumi, a freelance journalist working with multiple media outlets, and the killing of a male colleague, Ibrahim Muhareb, illustrate the grave risks faced by journalists in Gaza.
Salma was shot in the back, and Ibrahim Muhareb killed, when an Israeli tank fired towards a group of journalists covering the invasion of northwestern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. They were part of a group of five journalists on assignment together, apparently located well away from Israeli tanks. However, a number of tanks suddenly appeared in the area after their filming had ended, advanced and opened heavy fire on them. Some reporters had to lie on the ground for more than five minutes due to the intense gunfire before they were able to move away.
In a 19 August phone conversation with the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, not for profit organisation, Salma Al-Qaddoumi said:
“The tanks fired shells and bullets at us, and Ibrahim was hit directly. He asked me to help him leave the place, and I went with one of the displaced people in the area to rescue him, but the tanks fired more shells and bullets at us. At that moment, I was hit in the back by two (pieces of) shrapnel, either from the shells or the bullets. I then lost consciousness and found myself in the hospital.”
A female colleague reported that she and a male colleague had rescued Salma Al-Qaddoumi, found a cart and then a car to transport her to hospital.
Hind Al-Khoudary, another female Palestinian journalist based in Gaza, reports for multiple media outlets. Over the course of the war, she has seen her home destroyed, friends killed, and her family separated. On the challenges of reporting from Gaza, she has stated:
“To report and live the same exact thing is very overwhelming. We do everything [to stay safe]. We wear our press jackets. We wear our helmets. We try not to go anywhere that is not safe. […] But we have been targeted in normal places where normal citizens are. […] at the same time, we want to report, we want to tell the world what’s going on.”
On the Palestinian women journalists in Gaza receiving the 2024 Anna Politkovskaya Award, prominent human rights lawyer from Iran, Leila Alikarami, 2009 Award winner and a member of the 2024 Award Nominations Committee, said:
“As an Iranian woman who was honoured with the Anna Politkovskaya Award in 2009, I understand the profound courage it takes to speak truth to power, especially in times of conflict and repression. Today, I stand in solidarity with the brave Palestinian female journalists in Gaza, who continue to risk everything to shed light on the untold stories of their people. In the spirit of Anna’s legacy, your fearless dedication to justice and truth resonates deeply. You remind us all that journalism is not just a profession but a lifeline for the oppressed and, through your work, you are a beacon of hope for those who have been silenced.”
On receiving the Anna Politkovskaya Award, the Palestinian women journalists will join a group of remarkable women human rights defenders who received the Anna Politkovskaya Award in the past, including Lucy Kassa (2023), Tetiana Sokolova and Svetlana Gannushkina (2022), Fawzia Koofi (2021), Radhya Almatawakel (2020), Alex Crawford (2019), Binalakshmi Nepram (2018) and Svetlana Alexievich (2018), Gulalai Ismail (2017) and Gauri Lankesh (2017), Jineth Bedoya Lima (2016) and Valentina Cherevatenko (2016), Kholoud Waleed (2015), Vian Dakhil (2014), Malala Yousafzai (2013), Marie Colvin (2012), Razan Zaitouneh (2011), Dr. Halima Bashir (2010), Leila Alikarami on behalf of the One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality in Iran (2009), Malalai Joya (2008) and Natalia Estemirova (2007).
NOTES TO EDITORS
BACKGROUND
Monday, 7th October marks the 18th anniversary of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the campaigning Russian journalist and outspoken government critic, who exposed the brutal treatment of civilians in Chechnya, at the hands of both the Russian forces and the Moscow-supported Chechen officials. Despite an on-going investigation into her murder, those who ordered her murder have still not been brought to justice 18 years on. The impunity continues.
To mark the anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya’s murder and to honour Anna, and other women like her in the world, RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in WAR) annually presents the Anna Politkovskaya Award to a woman human rights defender from a conflict zone in the world who, like Anna, stands up for the victims, often at great personal risk. The awards will be presented to the winners in March 2025, at RAW in WAR’s ‘Refusing to be Silenced’ event, part of the 2025 Women of the World (WOW) Festival.
- RAW IN WAR
RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in WAR) is an international human rights NGO supporting women human rights defenders and women and girl victims of war and conflict around the world. RAW in WAR aims to:
• Support women human rights defenders, working in countries in war and conflict, and help end abuse and persecution against them.
• Work directly with women who are active in their communities in order to strengthen and enable their work on behalf of women and girl victims of conflict.
• Carry out its work in areas of conflict, or “forgotten conflict”, where there is limited, or no support from the major humanitarian agencies and organizations.
Mariana Katzarova founded RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in WAR) in 2006, after working as a journalist and human rights advocate in the war zones of Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya, including 10 years as the Russia Researcher for Amnesty International. Following the murder of her friend and colleague, Anna Politkovskaya, on 7th October 2006 in Moscow, Mariana and RAW set up the annual Anna Politkovskaya Award.
- AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS (pictures on demand):
Svetlana Alexievich – 2018 Award winner (Belarus)
Leila Alikarami – 2009 Award winner (Iran)
Elena Kudimova – Anna Politkovskaya’s sister
Friederike Behr – Chair, RAW Board of Trustees
- SUPPORTERS
Since its founding, more than 100 influential cultural and political leaders have joined the Committee of Supporters for the RAW in WAR Anna Politkovskaya Award, including:
Nobel Women’s Initiative, Mairead Maguire (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), Betty Williams (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), Jody Williams (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), Shirin Ebadi (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), Tatiana Yankelevich, Vaclav Havel, Jon Snow, John Pilger, Amy Goodman, Jeremy Bowen, Andre Glucksmann, Gloria Steinem, Sergey Kovalyov, Alexei Simonov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Svetlana Gannushkina, Lyudmila Alekseeva, Karinna Moskalenko, Lyse Doucet, Lindsey Hilsum, Gillian Slovo, Eva Hoffman, Adam Michnik, Oleg Panfilov, Tom Stoppard, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Natasha Kandic, Elisabeth Rehn, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mariane Pearl, Azar Nafisi, Asma Jahangir, Carl Gershman, Hina Jilani, Susan Sarandon, Jane Birkin, Sophie Shihab, Naomi Klein, Sister Helen Prejean, Ariel Dorfman, Vanessa Redgrave, Eve Ensler, Michael Cunningham, John Sweeney, Jonathan Schell, Noam Chomsky, Marina Litvinenko, Lucy Ash, Sussan Deyhim, Heidi Bradner, Desmond O’Malley, Anne Nivat, Annabel Markova, Lord Frank Judd, Lord Nicolas Rea, Lord Anthony Giddens, Lord Nazir Ahmed, Baroness Molly Meacher, Baroness Vivien Stern, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Yakin Erturk, Elena Kudimova, Andrey Nekrasov, Meglena Kuneva, Peter Gabriel, Stina Scott, Anna Stavitskaya, Dubravka Ugresic, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Victor Navasky, Holly Near, Joan Baez, Elizabeth Frank, Elizabeth Kostova, Bill Bowring, Irena Grudzinska Gross, Monica Ali, Isa Blyden, Nayereh Tohidi, Claire Bertschinger, Tsvetana Maneva, and others. For the full list of the Committee of Supporters to the Anna Politkovskaya Award please see: https://www.rawinwar.org/supporters/
FOR INTERVIEWS, PICTURESOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Friederike Behr on +44 (0) 77 65 66 24 77 or +49 (0) 1515 728 6247 WhatsApp/Signal or media@rawinwar.org
Nerys Lee on +44 20 72 63 24 64 or info@rawinwar.org
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