The 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners announced on Monday included numerous photos depicting the October 7 massacre by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Among the recipients was Ammar Awad, a Palestinian photographer from East Jerusalem, recognized for his poignant image of 14 elderly residents from Sderot who were gunned down by Hamas terrorists en route to a trip to the Dead Sea.
This was a group of Israeli-Russian nationals, some Holocaust survivors -who stopped at the bus stop in front of the city’s library, when their driver changed a tire, and were there when rocket sirens began. The elderly immediately wanted to enter a bomb shelter that was locked - and so remained outside. While exposed to rocket fire on the street, two white vans carrying terrorists arrived and as they identified the group - opened fire killing all of them.
Although the Pulitzer Prize committees skipped over several potential controversies and didn’t award the prestigious prize to New York Times photographer Yousef Massoud, the investigative reporter on who had been with the Nukhba terrorists as they invaded Israel and documented their atrocities and sexual violence, or the photo of Hamas terrorists in white vans above Shani Louk’s body - some of the other choices sparked controversies.
Another photographer featured in the same award category was Yasser Qudih, a Gazan photographer who also accompanied the terrorists during their infiltration into Israeli territory on October 7.
Qudih, who documented, among other things, the capture of an Israeli tank and the taking of Israeli captives, claimed his house was bombed just days after an HonestReporting investigation was published, showing him accompanying the terrorists, and raising the question of whether he had early knowledge of Hamas' intention to attack Israel.
However, Qudih’s selected work for the award was actually photographed in Gaza on October 25 and described as " A man holds his two nephews as Palestinians search for victims of an Israeli strike on a residential building in Gaza City.”
Israeli photographers Amir Cohen and Ronen Zvulun were also given the Pulitzer prize as part of the Reuters team, for their photographs from Israel during and after the Hamas massacre. The Pulitzer Committee praised journalists covering the Middle East, noting that "in harrowing conditions, an extraordinary number of journalists died in an effort to tell the stories of Palestinians and others in Gaza."
The Pulitzer Prize was also awarded to the controversial novel by Jewish author Nathan Thrall, 44, who lives in Jerusalem and whose work often criticizes Israel. The book, "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy," which was published a few days before October 7, focuses on the efforts of a Palestinian father to uncover information about his son following a bus accident. The prize committee described the work as " A finely reported and intimate account of life under Israeli occupation of the West Bank.”
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An Israeli woman in Ashkelon after her home was hit by a Hamas rocket
(Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
Pulitzer Prizes Administrator Marjorie Miller told Ynet that Reuters had willingly shared the HonestReporting website’s report upon entering the competition for review by the award committee, adding that details of the decision process for the winners were confidential and so no further information could be added.
Reuters said in response to a query from Ynet that the news agency was committed to reporting news in an objective, fair, and independent way, adding that they deny any allegations of Reuters staff knowing about Hamas’ planned October 7 attack ahead of time.
Reuters also addressed Awad's winning photo and said that a journalist’s job is to report important news as it breaks and to give first accounts of incidents as they happen. They added this was also true in a war zone and that they remain committed to reporting from both Gaza and Israel as is the moral obligation of the free press.