2026 Pulitzer Prize Remarks: Breaking News Photography

JOE KAHN:

The Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.

Saher Alghorra and his work from Gaza is the culmination of a yearslong effort that intimately captures the emotional toll of that war. Saher cannot be here today for this event, which is a reflection of the risk and circumstances that made his photography so uniquely valuable.

But we do have Meaghan Looram, our director of photography, who will now say more about Saher's work. Meaghan, would you like to come up?

MEAGHAN LOORAM:

Hi. I'm honored to be here to talk about Saher and his remarkable work.

With this work, Saher is delivering on the fundamental promise of visual journalism. He is documenting in real time, and at great personal risk, events and conditions that most of the world would otherwise never see. He is creating a vivid and unvarnished record of this period in history. He is informing us, and, importantly, he's connecting us to one another, building bridges of understanding. With integrity, bravery and care, he is doing the indispensable work of bearing witness.

I hope you will spend some time with Saher's photographs, heartbreaking though they may be. The images are gripping and urgent. They are at turns epic, conveying the imponderable scale of destruction and suffering. And they are also intimate, revealing shared moments of tenderness and survival. Mothers and fathers cradling their injured children. A family celebrating Ramadan with what little food they have, their yellow tablecloth the lone spot of color in the vast field of rubble that had been their neighborhood.

International journalists are still barred from entering Gaza, and it has become one of the most dangerous places for journalists to operate. There are fewer news organizations investing in on-the-ground coverage. The Times and other news organizations continue to call on Israel to let journalists into Gaza, as recently as last week. In the meantime, the work that Saher and other Palestinian journalists do is ever more critical, revealing life in Gaza and the inconceivable human costs of the war.

Covering conflict is grueling for any journalist. But Saher is not merely documenting this war, he is also living through it himself, facing the same hardship and peril as those whose lives he so compassionately documents. And despite these unfathomable challenges, he dedicates himself each day to his mission. Saher threw himself into this work, becoming a true visual correspondent, delivering powerful photography and reporting, and learning to shoot and file video in order to provide our readers with even more immersive and immediate visual dispatches.

I am so proud of Saher and his work. I am also proud of the incredible team of visual journalists recognized as finalists for their work in Ukraine, covering the evolution of drone warfare. Tyler Hicks, David Guttenfelder, Nicole Tung, Finbarr O'Reilly, Laetitia Vançon and Mauricio Lima. I am in awe of their tireless dedication and talent, and the many sacrifices they make to continue this challenging work.

And I am also deeply grateful to be a part of an organization that values and invests in this vital coverage.

Thank you, to Joe, Marc, Carolyn and Steve for your robust support of visual journalism. To Phil Pan and Adrienne Carter for your invaluable trust and partnership. To David McCraw, Dana Green, Tug Wilson and Maria Salazar Ferro for all you do to support the safety and resilience of our journalists. To all of the editors on international, photo, video, live, home and social visuals who took such care with this imagery, giving our readers the context and meaning needed. And to Meredith and A.G. and the Sulzberger family for allowing us to focus on this real public service of offering our readers the opportunity to be well-informed about the world.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Saher, and I wish that he could be here with us in person, for all of you to meet him and congratulate him, and for him to feel, in person, the tremendous support and camaraderie of this impressive newsroom.

But the next best thing is for me to introduce two people who helped make Saher's work possible: Gaia Tripoli, our deputy for international photography, who brilliantly and empathetically leads our global photographic coverage, and Mona Boshnaq, who is not just Saher's editor, but an unwavering source of support and guidance - a lifeline for Saher, as she is to so many photographers working in difficult, dangerous places. I'm grateful that Mona and Gaia are here to speak on Saher's behalf.

GAIA TRIPOLI:

When we called Saher to tell him he won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, he was at a store buying some groceries for his family. He said that they had heard news that there may be an escalation of Israeli strikes and that he wanted to make sure to stock up on what they needed. He only had a few minutes of internet credit left before the line would drop.

Saher's life, like that of many Palestinian journalists, has been inextricably linked to the conflict; he has not only chronicled the war's human cost, but has also endured it himself. The Israel-Gaza war has been the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Mona and I first approached Saher about a collaboration during a temporary cease-fire in February of last year. Saher, who just turned 29 in March, has never left Gaza in his life and is self-taught. Despite this, he quickly proved he possessed all the essential qualities of a great photojournalist: a talented eye, deep empathy to his subjects, unwavering determination and the highest ethical standards.

Throughout the past year, he has tirelessly documented Gaza's tragic descent into a humanitarian catastrophe.

He captured the rush of thousands of hungry Palestinians toward an aid convoy in northern Gaza, and the image of a young man shot by an Israeli soldier while attempting to grab food.

He photographed desperate Palestinians waiting for food at soup kitchens and made powerful images of starving children, including of a 2-year-old boy. "What shocked me while taking this photo," he wrote to us, "was that, before capturing it, I had tried to play with him to make him feel at ease. But I found the child like something without a soul - extremely frail, unresponsive to any of my attempts. His eyes stared, barely able to open."

"Taking this photo tore me apart," he said.

He documented the leveling of neighborhoods and the mass displacement of Palestinians.

He covered the return of Palestinian detainees after the October ceasefire, the search for the remains of Israeli hostages and the burial of unidentified bodies returned to Gaza by Israel.

I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the Sulzberger family, The Times, Meaghan, Phil and Adrienne for their commitment to this crucial coverage, and for giving us the opportunity to support Saher.

Finally, none of this coverage would have been possible without Mona Boshnaq, Saher's editor. She worked tirelessly, collaborating with him on this coverage and offering unwavering support during the darkest moments of the past year.

MONA BOSHNAQ:

It is a tremendous honor to address you today on Saher's behalf. He deeply wished he could be here himself, but as a Palestinian, it is impossible for him to leave the Gaza Strip.

I would like to begin with Saher's own words:

"I thank The New York Times for the opportunity and trust to do my work, allowing me to show the world the grueling war in Gaza and the immense toll it has taken on Palestinians. My sincere thanks also go to my editorial team for their guidance and support. Today, I must also remember the over 200 Gazan journalists killed during the war; there were many moments when I truly feared for my own life as well.

"While immensely proud and happy for this achievement, there is a tightness in my heart that I cannot be there in person to share some of the details behind these pictures."

Saher is more than a brilliant, dedicated photojournalist: He is a resilient survivor, like so many Gazan journalists who continued to cover the war despite unfathomable hardships.

Saher's home was destroyed in Gaza City early on in the war. He - along with his parents, sick grandmother and two sisters - was displaced six times and lived in tents at various points. As Gaza endured its worst food shortages during a total aid blockade, he struggled to find food for himself and his family. Saher never complained about it, or about the hardship. But I remember clearly calling him once to check in, and for the first time after working with him for months, his voice wavered and told me that he couldn't find any food to buy, anywhere. He often only ate one basic meal a day - no meat, eggs or fish available, no clean water to drink. He lost weight. Without transportation, he walked for miles in scorching heat while carrying his equipment. He would get on the back of a donkey-pulled cart or on a tuk-tuk if he was lucky to find one. There were days where he felt weak and dizzy. Bread was a lifeline; a day without bread was a difficult one.

Saher came very close to getting killed in strikes a few times. He was just across the street at a cafe drinking coffee and using the internet to file when a strike hit a restaurant in Gaza City. At least 33 people were killed and 155 wounded. He still picked his camera up and filed images of the devastating scene.

He lost colleagues, friends and loved ones in the war. He witnessed and photographed tragedies no human should experience. Saher and his family are now back in Gaza City living in his damaged apartment that he is fixing with whatever material he can find. The family's home was destroyed and cannot be rebuilt.

I would like to leave you with these final words from Saher that he sent us last year:

"I don't know how long I'll have the strength to continue like this. But I still want to keep reporting. I believe it's a responsibility I must carry - because we, the photojournalists and videographers, are among the few who can still show the world what is truly happening here."

Thank you.