According to a statement released by the head of the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate, Khaled El-Balshy, on Sunday, December 17, the Board of Trustees of the Egyptian Press Awards has nominated Palestinian journalist Wael Al Dahdouh for the 2023 Press Freedom Award.
This recognition comes after weeks of covering the ongoing war in Gaza and recognizes his professional contributions and sacrifices. After being absent for several years, the award is being reinstated for the first time.
El-Balshy stated that the organization that bestows awards, the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate, views this year’s honor as a testament to the Palestinian journalists’ tenacity in the face of Israeli aggression and its “brutal war machine.”
The martyrs of Palestinian journalism were honored by The Syndicate for their role in bringing attention to the “crimes of genocide against the Palestinian people.”
Al Dahdouh’s nomination is a testament to his extraordinary professionalism in the face of losing his home to Israeli bombing and losing his loved ones. Despite losing several family members in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in October, he kept working.
Furthermore, Al Dahdouh was named Person of the Year by Al-Azhar Voice magazine, which described Palestinian journalists as truth-seeking soldiers.
This acknowledgment is a testament to the work that Palestinian journalists have done in exposing injustices in Gaza and the West Bank and refuting false narratives propagated by mainstream media.
Notably, the Gaza conflict accounted for 72% of the deaths of journalists globally this year. Three Lebanese journalists were martyred in Israeli gunshots near the border between the two countries, along with sixty-one Palestinian and four Israeli journalists.
With 68 journalists slain since the Hamas attack on October 7, the war on Gaza represents the highest number of journalist deaths in a single conflict that the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has tracked since 1990.
