Now I am here with my wife and three of my children. My eldest has gone to continue his studies at the German University in Cairo. He was delay by a year because the war start only a month after the start of the school year. He could not stay with us in Doha because the university here is very expensive. My other children are at the Palestinian school. The community is very important here. And I continue to work for AFP. We are trying to rebuild ourselves. Too much has happen.
I was delight, because it is a very renown prize. During my years of work with AFP, I won many distinctions that are quite recogniz in the world of photography. The Bayeux Prize for example, but also prizes in Istanbul, in the Arab world, in China, in Japan…
For my coverage of this war, I receiv the first prize at the Istanbul Photo Awards earlier this year. I am also a finalist again for the Bayeux Prize for which I will be traveling to France from October 8. But the Visa d’Or is something else, I am really very happy because it is a prestigious prize that crowns my greatest work. It shows that the world has understood my message. And when your work is appreciat by people, you can only be satisfi. I feel like I have accomplish positive things for my people and for my profession.
I have cover everything in Gaza and its region since 2003. The revolution in Egypt, Libya, the World Cup in Qatar… But this war is my most important work. It is the biggest event in recent years. The most dangerous. Even the working conditions in this war are completely different from the previous ones.
How is this war different from previous ones?
This war is the biggest. The others were just a rehearsal of what usually senegal phone number library happens in Gaza. It was already very dangerous, of course, but we were bas in our offices in Gaza City and we felt relatively safe there. We could go more or less wherever we want. But for this war, the suffering start from the very first day.
Attack three journalists were kill by the Israeli army
From the first hour. After three days, I myself was injur, in my own office. I receiv a piece of shrapnel in the leg. Two days later, we were order to leave the premises. When they bomb our building, another journalist was kill. Then they forc us to leave the capital and the entire northern Gaza Strip to go to Khan Younis or Rafah. We had to leave everything behind, tools to schule your email campaigns we left without any logistics, without our belongings.
Our office was a refuge. We felt safe there, we had a room to rest alb directory with some comfort. We left everything behind. We left with our cars and our equipment. We left all our memories. All the awards I receiv, all my papers, my diplomas, I lost everything there. When I left the office, I naively thought that I would be back after three days. But now it’s been a year. I left the country and I took only my passport with me! (laughs). With a small bag of clothes, my two cameras and my computer.