The joint winner of the Marie Colvin Award 2024 has urged international journalists to keep pushing to get inside Gaza.
Yousef Hammash won the award, named in honour of the late Sunday Times correspondent, who died while reporting in Syria in 2012, alongside Feras Al Ajrami of BBC Eye Investigations who remains inside Gaza. The award recognises up and coming journalists of Colvin’s calibre.
Hammash’s work producing “searing eyewitness journalism” from Gaza also contributed to Channel 4 News being named News Provider of the Year at the British Journalism Awards on Thursday.
Hammash (pictured, second left) got out of Gaza earlier this year almost six months after the current conflict began on 7 October 2023. During that time he covered the impact of Israel’s bombing of the Palestinian territory while repeatedly fleeing south for safety with his family.
International journalists have been banned by Israel from entering Gaza since the current conflict began. UK and US foreign correspondents have repeatedly been among those calling for access but the only way to enter is on an embedded visit with Israeli forces under strict terms.
Speaking after the awards dinner in London, Hammash told Press Gazette that this means “all that burden of bearing witness and reporting from the ground has been left for journalists who are on the ground in Gaza, Palestinian journalists who are taking that role and that responsibility since 14 months”.
At least 137 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon since 7 October 2023 according to tracking by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Hammash added that the “horror” in Gaza was continually increasing with the population “under continuous evacuation”.
This means it is particularly hard for Palestinian journalists, he said, who “have the daily basis responsibility to report and acknowledge the reality of the human cost in Gaza”.
Explaining why it is so important to bear witness, Hammash said: “If it had been allowed once, it will be allowed again and again and again so we have a responsibility to stop it now.”
He said he has continued reporting and producing for Channel 4 News, including leading a team in Gaza, because he feels that “as a Gazan, a Palestinian, still I have my responsibility”.
“That’s why these recognitions are important – not because of me, because of the journalists in Palestine and the challenges they are having and what’s going on around them… the amount of life lost among journalists that we have never ever witnessed.
“On the personal side, they are my colleagues and my friends who are going through that living in unimaginable living conditions… from a tent to another tent living on the side of the roads, under bombardment. They have a responsibility as journalists and they also have responsibilities towards their families, finding food, finding water, finding shelter for them. They are exposed to the same conditions like any other Palestinian trapped in that situation now.
“Again, international journalists need to stand ahead their responsibility and report and bear witness there because journalists in Gaza need and deserve a break. It’s as simple as that. And on the personal side, I want a break. You should go there, give me and my team a break.”
Hammash said winning the Marie Colvin Award brought “mixed feelings” in the week that Syria’s dictatorship was overthrown – something that gave him “a glimmer of hope” for Gaza.
He said “the name itself brings me an honour” because Colvin was not just a “normal journalist – she was someone who sacrificed her life similar to what we are currently seeing in Gaza on a daily basis”.
“Marie Colvin is part of that struggle for a nation for to have its liberty from a dictatorship that ruled them for over 50 years so the timing now for Syria… it’s a bit mixed feeling to be honest when it’s related to Marie Colvin because of her role as a journalist who reported on loss of life, bearing witness in Syria… On the other hand, we have the reality of loss of life and harassed conditions that Palestinian journalists are going through.”
Channel 4 News said it was “unbelievably proud” of Hammash for winning the “prestigious” Marie Colvin Award while lead presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy praised Hammash’s “vital work in Gaza”.
The British Journalism Awards judges said of both Hammash and Al Ajrami: “Whilst the world’s media has been banned from entering Gaza, these reporters were among those who have ensured that victims of the conflict still have a voice. It is a conflict zone which has become the most deadly in history for the media, with 137 journalists and media workers killed in just over a year.
“They’ve both captured the voice from the ground, shown tremendous courage in appalling circumstances and produced vivid, memorable stories. Whilst one [Al Ajrami] chronicled the work of emergency crews working in Gaza during the first weeks of the conflict, the other winner [Hammash] covered the bombardment of Gaza even as his home was destroyed and he had to flee south with his family.”
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