I won an Izzy Award. I accept it in the name of Gaza’s journalists

Most of the stories that brought me here were written in darkness — literal and figurative — without power, protection, and barely enough to survive. This honor is for those who kept writing anyway.

The 2025 awards recognized the work of Jewish Currents and San Francisco Public Press along with journalists Steve Mellon, Maximillian Alvarez and Mohammad Mhawish. (Christopher Meadows)

I never thought I’d write these words. I’ve just been awarded the Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media — an award that bears the name of I.F. Stone, a journalist who believed in telling the truth even when the consequences were devastating.

This award is a tremendous honor. But it’s not just about me. It is about Gaza. It is about the stories we told when no one wanted to hear them — stories written while bombs fell overhead, while the internet vanished, while entire families were being erased.

And most of that work — the reporting that brought me to this stage — was done while I was still in northern Gaza, where the siege was so total it felt like the world had turned its back on us entirely.

I was reporting while trying to keep my family alive.
I was writing while evacuating — again and again.
I was gathering testimonies from survivors while becoming one myself.

There were days when I hadn’t eaten. Days when the air was so thick with dust and death that it felt like a second skin. Days when I had no gear — no phone charger, no camera, no recorder — just memory, scraps of paper, and whatever fragments of Wi-Fi I could catch like breath.

There were nights when I filed dispatches not knowing if the place I had just written about would still exist by morning.

There were mornings I woke up not sure if I was lucky to still be breathing — or if surviving meant having to carry yet another body, yet another goodbye.

And still, I wrote. Like so many of us did. Because we had no choice.

“This recognition comes at a moment when the stakes could not be higher — when we are witnessing not only the erosion of journalists’ protection in Gaza, but the deliberate silencing of an entire people’s right to speak for themselves.”

When I was finally forced into exile, I carried not just my trauma with me — but the stories of my people. I carried the silenced, the buried, the unspoken. I carried the knowledge that while some of us survived, far too many didn’t.

This Izzy Award, then, is yes a victory. But also a memorial. A recognition that truth-telling under fire still matters. That bearing witness, even when the world looks away, still matters.

Because in Gaza, journalism is dangerous. And it is deadly.

Over the past year, we have seen the systematic targeting of journalists. Not just accidents. Not just casualties of war. Targeted killings. Cameras became threats. Press vests became targets. Telling the truth became a death sentence.

And yet, they kept reporting.

“When I think about the friends and fellow journalists we've lost, it becomes clear to me that journalism is not just about telling the story of survival — it is itself a form of survival.”

Being a Palestinian journalist means living with constant misrepresentation. It means being spoken about, not to. It means having our words dismissed, distorted, or drowned out.

So we learned to tell our stories anyway — through smuggled footage, broken phones, scribbled notes, memory.

Because if we don’t tell them, someone else will.
And too often, their versions erase our humanity.

This award is for those who couldn’t leave. For those still reporting from tents, from rubble, from what used to be homes and schools and streets. It’s for the journalists in Gaza working with no gear, no networks, no insurance, and no promise of tomorrow.

It’s for those we’ve lost. Friends. Mentors. Colleagues. Dozens upon dozens of journalists killed — some while holding microphones, others while holding their children.

It’s for the Palestinian people — those who endure, resist, and insist on being seen.

I am grateful to the Park Center for Independent Media for this recognition. You chose to honor work that is not just dangerous — but inconvenient for power. You chose to see us. To hear us. And to believe that Palestinian voices belong not on the margins, but at the center.

“Thank you for believing that journalism matters — not just when it’s easy, but when it’s nearly impossible.”

I thank my family, who kept me standing when everything around us collapsed. And I thank my fellow reporters in Gaza — those still standing and those who are no longer with us. Their bravery is not history. It is happening right now.

This Izzy Award is a reminder:
That we are not invisible.
That our work is not in vain.
That even in exile, the story continues.

To the people of Gaza: your voices will not be silenced.
Your stories will not be forgotten.
Your truth will not be buried.

This is not the end.
We are still here.
We will keep telling the truth.
And we will not stop.