Journalists in Gaza get 2026 WAN-IFRA Golden Pen of Freedom Award

MANILA, Philippines – Journalists working in Gaza were honored at the World News Media Congress in Marseille on Monday, June 1, receiving the 2026 Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

Mohammed Abed of the Agence France-Presse, Fatima Shbair of the Associated Press, and Mohammed Salem of Reuters accepted the award and spoke on behalf of the journalists in Gaza.

‘Not observers standing outside the story’

In his short address, Abed said that they accepted the award “for our colleagues still inside Gaza right now, pointing their cameras at the truth while the world watches. And we accept it, in particular, for those who can no longer hold a camera — the journalists who were killed while doing this work.”

Abed added that the work of covering the war in Gaza was not that of “observers standing outside the story” but of being inside it.

“We are Palestinian. Gaza is our home. When I photographed a funeral, I was often photographing people I knew. When I photographed children without food, I was photographing children from my own community,” he explained.

Abed added, “That closeness is not something we set aside. But it is also what drove us, every day, to document with precision — because we understood better than anyone what was at stake in getting it right.”

The first challenge of covering Gaza, Abed said, was that you were not covering someone else’s war. “You are living it. Every single day.”

‘As a journalist, you have a job to do’

Shbair added the second challenge for journalists covering Gaza: there is no rest in coverage because unlike other conflicts, journalists cannot rotate in and out of the conflict zone.

Shbair explained that because foreign reporters were banned from Gaza — except for those on tours by the Israeli military — “the only people telling the world what was happening inside Gaza were Palestinian journalists. People like us. People covering the war while living through it ourselves.”

“Some may wonder whether journalists in our position – living inside the story, with families affected by the same events we were covering – could report with professional rigor. But as a journalist, you have a job to do. And that job is to bear witness and report the facts so that the rest of the world know what is happening.”

‘The work continues because the record matters’

The third, most personal challenge of journalists in Gaza was doing the work at great personal cost. Salem said journalists were labeled as combatants and the head of the Committee to Protect Journalists stated: “Israel’s war on Gaza is more deadly to journalists than any previous war.”

Salem continued, “I lost my brother Bilal in this war. He was a journalist. That loss does not leave you. But the work continues because the record matters.”

“That is why this award matters so much to us. Not because it eases the grief. It does not. But because it says: we see you. We know what you did. We know what it cost.”

Salem closed the acceptance speech by calling for press freedom.

“We close by saying this clearly, on behalf of AFP, AP, and Reuters: journalists must be free to report the news — to inform the world — without fear of harassment or harm, wherever they are. That is not a political statement. It is the foundation of a free press, and the foundation of an informed world. When journalists are killed, when they are labelled enemies, when they are shut out, it is not just the journalists who suffer. It is everyone who depends on the truth.” – Rappler.com