Photojournalist Doaa al Baz works on the streets in Gaza, 17 September. Photo: EPA-EFE/HAITHAM IMAD
The Reach All Women in War (RAW in WAR) organisation has honoured Palestinian women journalists in Gaza with the 2024 Anna Politkovskaya Award, given to women who defend human rights in conflict zones, it announced on Tuesday.
In its press release, the RAW in WAR nominating committee said that it was “deeply humbled by the selfless and determined persistence” with which Palestinian women journalists in Gaza “reported on the plight of the civilians and stood up for humanity amidst grave human rights violations and war crimes”.
Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, a member of this year’s nominating committee and winner of the Politkovskaya Award in 2018, said in a speech announcing the winners that “while the military and politicians speak the language of war, women journalists defend life, risking their own lives under shelling”.
“Women are always defending life, because life comes into this world through women,” Alexievich added.
The organisers of the award emphasised that Palestinian journalists, many of whom are women, have become “the only voice and the sole source of reporting” from the Gaza Strip.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonprofit organisation that promotes press freedom worldwide, the war in Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history, with at least 128 journalists and media workers killed, all but five of them Palestinian.
The award ceremony for Gaza’s women journalists will take place in March 2025 at the RAW in WAR event “Refusing to Be Silent”, the organisation announced.
The Anna Politkovskaya Award was established in 2007 by RAW in WAR to honour Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed at the entrance to her home in Moscow on 7 October 2006. Politkovskaya gained international renown for her exposés of Kremlin corruption and the brutal treatment of civilians in Chechnya at the hands of Russian forces. Russian investigative authorities are yet to name those responsible for organising her assassination.
The Politkovskaya Prize has previously been awarded to journalist Natalya Estemirova, who was abducted from her home in Chechnya’s Grozny in 2009 and found dead on the same day, Yemeni human rights activist Radhya al-Mutawakel, and many others. Last year the award was given to Ethiopian journalist Lucy Kassa for her coverage of the war in Tigray.
