Palestinian photojournalist:

‘This is worth dying for’

Photojournalist Samar Abu Elouf’s harrowing work in Gaza has garnered critical acclaim. But that’s not why she does it.

The first thing Samar Abu Elouf does before photographing a dead child is make sure it isn’t one of her own.

Feelings of fear, panic and duty overcome the award-winning photojournalist and mother of four, who makes no attempt to conceal her tears as she raises a camera to her eye and snaps, capturing another agonizing scene in Gaza.

It’s been more than 10 years since Abu Elouf became a photojournalist, defying traditional gender roles and blazing new trails for women in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory. Since then, she’s captivated the world and set hearts on fire with portraits of death, displacement and despair — as well as moments of joy and resilience.

Her latest photographs — documenting the horrors of war in Gaza since October 7 — have garnered critical acclaim, including the 2024 Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award and a George Polk Award.

They depict mothers and fathers mid-scream, crouched over tiny bodies wrapped in white, blood-stained shrouds; hospital cribs full of premature babies, their malnourished bodies as frail as twigs; children looking up at the sky in horror as Israeli bombs rain down.

“Taking pictures of corpses hurts me most. One of the worst was a photo of 170 dead bodies, all piled on top of each other,” Abu Elouf, 40, tells CNN in Arabic from a hotel room in Cairo, where she had earlier given a talk on war photography. “These are human beings, not just bags of flesh, blood and bones. Bodies of all sizes, from newborns to grandparents. These are people who dreamed of living until tomorrow and had hope they would survive the war.”

As a Palestinian from Gaza, Abu Elouf has experienced more war and strife than she cares to remember. But the level of brutality and destruction wrought by this latest assault caught her by surprise and threw her life into a tailspin.

“I’m not just a person with a camera, I’m a human being. As I’m taking these pictures, I know what I’m seeing isn’t normal,” she says, her voice cracking under the weight of her words. “Being a journalist in Gaza feels like you’re dying on the inside over and over again.”