Marseille, France – Three Palestinian photojournalists working for the world’s leading news agencies received the 2026 WAN-IFRA Golden Pen of Freedom on June 1, in recognition of work carried out under fire in what has become the deadliest conflict for journalists in recorded history.

Mohammed Abed of AFP, Fatima Shbair of the Associated Press, and Mohammed Salem of Reuters accepted the award at the World News Media Congress in Marseille on behalf of all visual journalists who have covered — and died covering — the war in Gaza.

‘We award the Golden Pen of Freedom to journalists who, against all odds, including the killing of colleagues and family members, have persevered in the most grotesque circumstances,’ said the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Israel has killed 264 journalists and injured 174 since the war began — more than any other nation since the CPJ began keeping records in 1992. Media rights group Reporters Without Borders puts the figure at over 220 killed, at least 70 in direct connection with their professional duties.

The burden of documentation fell entirely on Palestinian journalists after Israel barred foreign reporters from independently entering Gaza — a ban that remains in place. International media access has been limited to rare, military-escorted visits.

“We were not observers standing outside the story. We were inside it. We are Palestinian. Gaza is our home,” said Abed, speaking on behalf of all three agencies.

Fatima described conditions with no parallel in modern conflict journalism. “There was no rotation, no break, no decompression,” she said, recounting how journalists filed from hospitals and wherever electricity could be found, moving with their families as Israeli forces advanced.

Salem’s address was the most personal. “I lost my brother Bilal in this war. He was a journalist.” He described photographing Inas Abu Muhammad cradling the body of her five-year-old niece in a hospital morgue — an image, he said, that captured the full weight of what Gaza had endured.

“A picture should not be taken just with the eye. It should have meaning in its heart,” Salem said.

Journalists must be free to report the news without fear of harassment or harm, wherever they are, Salem added. “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.”

The Golden Pen of Freedom is WAN-IFRA’s annual award recognising individuals or organisations that have made an outstanding contribution to the defence and promotion of press freedom. One of the objectives of the Golden Pen is to turn the spotlight of public attention on repressive governments and the journalists who fight them.