Palestinian poet wins Pulitzer Prize for essays on life in war-torn Gaza

The New Yorker wins three Pulitzers, the most ever awarded to a magazine in a single year

Mosab Abu Toha, left, looks at books with his friend Shafi Salem in the garden of Mosab's family home in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on February 20, 2017. AFP

Palestinian writer and poet Mosab Abu Toha, who has faced criticism from pro-Israel advocacy groups, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary on Monday for his poignant essays on life in war-torn Gaza, where he has lived nearly all of his life.

Abu Toha’s winning work comprised four pieces documenting the hardships faced by Palestinians under Israeli siege, including a personal account of his family’s desperate search for food amid relentless bombardment.

The Pulitzer committee praised his "essays on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza that combine deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of more than a year and a half of war with Israel."

Born in a Gaza City refugee camp in 1992, he was wounded at the age of 16 in a 2009 air strike that killed six people. In a social media post, he said he had never been affiliated with any political or military faction.

“I don’t support any. I only support my people’s human rights to freedom and self-determination,” he wrote.

As an accomplished scholar and librarian, he founded the Edward Said library in Gaza, the only English-language library in the enclave.

Mr Abu Toha first left Gaza in 2019 to attend a fellowship at Harvard University. A father of three, he was detained by Israeli forces in November 2023 while trying to evacuate with his family. He was released after soldiers determined he had no ties to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

“An Israeli soldier told me, ‘We are sorry about the mistake. You are going home',” he recalled.

The New Yorker won three Pulitzers, the most ever awarded to a magazine in a single year, for its Middle East conflict coverage.

Contributor Moises Saman was recognised for his harrowing photography of Syria’s Assad regime, documenting torture and repression in morgues and detention centres.

In audio reporting, the Pulitzer went to In the Dark’s third season, hosted by Madeleine Baran, which reinvestigated the 2005 killings of 25 Iraqi civilians by US Marines.

Palestinian photographers from Agence France-Presse (AFP) were finalists in the breaking news photography category for "powerful images" from Gaza, earning praise for encapsulating "the enduring humanity of the people of Gaza amid widespread destruction and loss."

The New York Times’ Azam Ahmed, Christina Goldbaum and contributor Matthieu Aikins won for their investigation into how US support for abusive Afghan militias fuelled Taliban recruitment and undermined America’s war efforts.