Volkswacht Bodensee - Photo and video journalists in Gaza to receive 'Golden Pen' award

The 2026 Golden Pen of Freedom will be handed to representatives of global news agencies still operating in Gaza -- Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press and Reuters -- "whose local journalists continue to provide consistent, professional coverage under extremely challenging conditions", said the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

"For over two and a half years, journalists in Gaza have recorded death, destruction, and human suffering in unparalleled terms," reads the citation of the award.

"They are as much victims of the conflict as they are chroniclers of a war that erupted -- and continues -- around them."

War broke out in Gaza after Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering an Israeli military campaign.

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says Israeli forces have killed more than 220 journalists, at least 70 of whom were killed in the context of their professional duties.

The Israeli army says it never deliberately targets journalists. But since October 2023, it has claimed to have killed a number of people who it says were Palestinian militant "terrorists" working under the guise of being media professionals.

AFP photographer Mohammed Abed, who worked in Gaza until April 2024 before joining its Cairo bureau, will be among those at the ceremony in the French city of Marseille.

The award "acknowledges the sacrifice and endurance of local Palestinian media professionals living and working in a war zone," said WAN-IFRA, which holds its 2026 World News Media Congress from Monday to Wednesday.

"It also recognises colleagues injured and killed in the course of doing their job."

The Israeli government has barred foreign journalists from independently entering the blockaded territory since the war began.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

Israel's military campaign against Hamas since then has killed more than 72,800 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Despite an October ceasefire, Gaza remains gripped by deadly violence as Israeli strikes continue, with both the military and Hamas accusing one another of violating the truce.

A.Ammann--VB