This year, AFP photojournalist Mahmud Hams was award the prestigious Visa d’Or in the News category for his coverage of the war in Gaza. For the Bondy Blog, he looks back on his evacuation, his direct experience of the war and practicing his profession in this particular context. Interview.
A woman with her face cover
in ashes screams in the gray rubble. Two men carry a third, wound in the leg, under the menacing gaze of an Israeli tank. A distraught, exhaust, almost dead mother hugs her children in a hospital in Khan Younès. Mahmud Hams’ photographs bear witness without artifice to the barbarity of the war between Israel and the Gazans. An honesty in horror, where all the images have one thing in common: a form of humanity that requires us to look at them with our hearts.
Mahmud Hams bears witness in his photos to his own genocide. saudi arabia phone number library It is his land, his people, his fellow men who are target. If we are to believe the macabre count of journalists kill in the enclave, he himself operates with a target on his back. Employ since 2003 by AFP, this is not the photojournalist’s first war. For the Bondy Blog, he looks back on his evacuation, his direct experience of war and the practice of his profession in the particular context of Gaza. Interview.
How are you adjusting to your new life in Qatar?
We have been in Doha since last February. The campaign idea launch vip programs situation had really deteriorat, so AFP decid to evacuate its entire team from Gaza. Some families left for Qatar thanks to the French alb directory embassy, and the others were evacuat to Egypt. I already knew Qatar, because I visit Doha several times in the past. But now we have mov there, in conditions that cannot be describ as normal. I am not in a very positive frame of mind, because I had to leave people behind. My colleagues and friends, but also part of my family. My father, my brothers.