Photojournalist who risked her life in Gaza asks herself: Can a photo make a difference?

Warning: This story contains images of covered bodies and other scenes from the war in Gaza.

As Samar Abu Elouf stood on stage at a glitzy hotel in downtown Toronto on Wednesday, tearfully accepting an award for her photojournalism, all she could think about was her family back home in Gaza.

For more than a decade, Elouf has forged a career as a photojournalist in Gaza against all odds, documenting life inside the Palestinian enclave, both before and after the events of Oct. 7, 2023.

Now, she's being honoured for that work with an International Press Freedom Award from the non-profit advocacy group, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE).

She says she appreciates the recognition, but it's a double-edged sword.

"While I was on the stage, I remembered my family," Elouf told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal, speaking through an interpreter in a CBC studio in Toronto Friday.

"They are suffering back in Gaza. They're in hunger. They live in the camps. It's very hard for me to bear this."

Making press gear out of household items

When Elouf started to pursue photography in 2010 in Gaza City, there were very few women doing that kind of work there.

She didn't have funding, equipment, media affiliations, or even family support — but she carried on anyway, according to a CNN profile, taking classes, watching free video tutorials online, and borrowing whatever camera equipment she could. 

"Everything was very hard for me because of the economic situation back in Gaza," she said. 

In 2015, she was covering tense protests at the Israel-Gaza border when she decided she needed to identify herself as press for her own safety. But she didn't have any official press gear.

"So I had to make my own," she said. 

She wrapped herself in a blue garbage bag with the word "PRESS" spelled out with white tape. She used a cooking pot as a helmet.

A photo of Elouf in her makeshift gear went viral. Several years later, she got the real deal, courtesy of the Marie Colvin Journalists' Network.

'She does this work at great personal risk'

Over time, Elouf started to build a career, freelancing for local and international organizations, including Reuters and Middle East Eye.

She now works for the New York Times, where, until she and her family fled Gaza in December, she had been documenting the war that has reduced most of her home to rubble.

"The images that Samar has made have been some of the most vital and gripping to come out of Gaza. Her photographs are urgent and intimate, bracing in the drama of what they portray, but compassionately seen," Meaghan Looram, director of photography at the New York Times, said in an email.

"They convey the epic scale of destruction but also a multitude of wrenching, personal moments. She does this work at great personal risk with grace, bravery and dedication: qualities that are all the more awe-inspiring since she is covering the place that she and her family call home."

'The war changed everything'

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas and other militants stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people, and taking more than 250 people hostage, about 100 of whom remain unaccounted for, and many of whom are presumed dead, according to Israeli figures.

Israel responded with a siege and military offensive in Gaza that, to date, has killed nearly 43,000 people, according to Gaza's health ministry. 

About 1.9 million Palestinians, more than 90 per cent of Gaza's population, have been forced from their homes. Much of Gaza has been destroyed, including schools, hospitals and refugee camps. 

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders on charges of war crimes, while the International Court of Justice considers whether Israel's actions in Gaza constitute a genocide, which Israel vehemently denies.

The war has since spread into neighbouring Lebanon. 

When the bombs started raining down on Gaza a year ago, Elouf says she did what Palestinian journalists always do — run toward the carnage.

"I took my camera and I took my stuff, and I knew since day one that I will never go back home," she said.

In the months that followed, Elouf photographed horror after horror. She documented children, maimed or killed, being pulled from the rubble. She photographed her colleague Mohammed al-Aloul holding the dead body of his own child. 

As she was working, she'd find herself checking morgues and hospitals to make sure her own family members weren't among the casualties. She says she's lost more than a dozen relatives to the war.

This wasn't the kind of work she initially set out to do.

When she first started taking photos, Elouf says she wanted to show the world who Gazans really are — ordinary people with a beautiful culture who love life.

Her photos didn't only capture suffering, but also moments of joy. And she especially liked to focus her lens on women and children.

"Before the war, I used to wish everyone to come and see people in Gaza and meet them. But the war changed everything," she said. 

One of her earlier photos that she's particularly proud of shows children sitting in a circle around a birthday cake in a Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, their smiling faces lit by the glow of the cameras. 

"I want everyone around the world to see that it's their right, the kids, to live, and it's their right to enjoy ... life as any kid around the world," she said.

That image netted Elouf her first award from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in 2012. Others awards would follow, including most recently, the one from CJFE.

"Samar Abu Elouf's work goes beyond capturing images; she captures the very essence of humanity," Carol Off, CJFE's co-president, and former host of CBC's As It Happens, said in a press release.

At least 131 journalists killed 

In December, with the help of the Times, Elouf escaped Gaza with her family, and is now living in Doha, Qatar.

"It was the hardest decision that I have ever made," she said. "But my kids, they can't bear it anymore."

She thinks often of her colleagues who have been killed in the line of duty.

"I always remember them," she said. "They were always supporting me. They were always beside me."

As of Saturday, the non-profit Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says it has documented at least 131 journalists and media workers among those killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon since the start of the war.

Journalists in Gaza, the organization notes, are particularly at risk. 

Israel has long maintained it does not target journalists intentionally, and that its strikes are meant for Hamas and Hezbollah militants.

Israeli Defence Forces did not respond to CBC's request for comment about recent killings of journalists in Lebanon, or what Israel does to ensure journalists are protected. 

'Which picture would make a difference?'

A year ago, Elouf posted several graphic images of babies and children in Gaza on Instagram, with the caption: "Every morning, every evening and every moment I ask myself: What photo does the world want to see in order to stop this war?"

It's a question she still doesn't know the answer to as she uses her camera to document the lives of her fellow Palestinian refugees in Qatar.

"Until now, I asked myself: What should I do? Which picture would make a difference?" she said, noting that, ultimately, no one photo has the power to bring peace.

"For the first time in my life, when I take a picture, I feel like this picture is not making any difference, and this makes me so down."