Jump to content

Samar Abu Elouf

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Samar Abu Elouf
سمر أبو العوف
Born1983 or 1984 (age 40–41)
Gaza, Palestine
OccupationPhotojournalist
AwardsWorld Press Photo of the Year
2025
George Polk Award for Photojournalism
2023

Samar Abu Elouf (Arabic: سمر أبو العوف; born 1983 or 1984),[1] sometimes romanized as Samar Abu Ouf,[2] is a Palestinian photojournalist whose work documents life in Palestine. She has worked for Reuters and The New York Times.[3]

Career

[edit]

Abu Elouf is from Gaza.[4] Abu Elouf was 26 when she began seeking a career, desiring more purpose beyond being a housewife. She was drawn to photography and began taking photos despite the reprimands of her then-husband and her family.[4] In 2010, she enrolled in photography classes and taught herself with online tutorials.[4] In 2012, she won a prize in UNRWA's "Change the Picture" contest for one of her photos of children celebrating a birthday.[2] She began freelance work with Reuters, Middle East Eye, and local magazine Al Ghaidaa.[4] While covering a border protest in Gaza in 2015, Elouf improvised a helmet from a cooking pot and made a vest with "press" written on it to make it clear that she was a photographer documenting the events.[4]

Elouf photographed Palestinians celebrating the end of the 2012 Gaza War.

After the onset of the Gaza war, she began living out of her Jeep and traveled between cities to report and document the aftermath of airstrikes. Her home in Gaza City was destroyed in an airstrike.[4] She won the 2023 George Polk Award for Photojournalism, jointly with Yousef Masoud, for her photographs for The New York Times of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip in late 2023.[5][6] In December 2024, Abu Elouf and Israeli photographer Avishag Shaar-Yashuv [he] jointly won the UNICEF Photo of the Year award for their portraits of child survivors of the Gaza war and October 7, 2023 attacks respectively.[7]

In December 2023, she and her children evacuated to Doha in Qatar with assistance from The New York Times.[4][8] Since leaving Gaza, Abu Elouf's photography has documented the lives of other displaced people.[9][5] While in Doha, Abu Elouf lived near Mahmoud Ajjour, a child who lost both his arms due to an Israeli airstrike; Elouf took a portrait photograph of Ajjour, with permission from his mother, as part of a news report on people wounded during the war in Gaza receiving medical treatment in Qatar. The picture was recognised as the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year.[10][11]

Awards and honours

[edit]

Personal life

[edit]

Abu Elouf has four children; she and her children are based in Doha, Qatar as of 2024.[1] During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis 14 of Elouf's family members were killed in an explosion.[11]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c Kaur, Wendy (2024-10-23). "Palestinian photojournalist Samar Abu Elouf given International Press Freedom Award for work capturing war in Gaza". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  2. ^ a b "Young Palestinians win prizes for photos of refugee life". UNRWA. 2012-11-09. Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  3. ^ a b "2024 Anja Niedringhaus Honorees". International Women's Media Foundation. Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Elassar, Alaa (2024-07-14). "'This is worth dying for'". www.cnn.com. Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  5. ^ a b "Photos: Palestinian photographer wins world's top photo prize". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  6. ^ a b Robertson, Katie (2024-02-19). "The New York Times Wins 3 Polk Awards". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  7. ^ a b Steinberg, Jessica (2024-12-26). "Israeli photojournalist shares UNICEF Photo of the Year prize with Palestinian colleague". The Times of Israel.
  8. ^ Nagourney, Eric (2024-11-19). "Out of Gaza". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  9. ^ Moorhead, Joanna (2025-04-17). "Palestinian photojournalist Samar Abu Elouf wins World Press Photo with image of young Gazan amputee". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  10. ^ Da Silva, Chantal (2025-04-18). "Portrait of Palestinian boy who lost both arms in Israeli strike named press photo of the year". NBC News. Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  11. ^ a b Frehse, Lea (2025-04-17). "Samar Abu Elouf: "Frau Abu Elouf, wer ist der Junge auf Ihrem Bild?"". Die Zeit (in German). ISSN 0044-2070. Retrieved 2025-04-24.
  12. ^ "France's top photojournalism awards go to Palestinians covering Gaza war". RFI. 2024-09-08. Retrieved 2025-06-09.
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Samar Abu Elouf.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Samar_Abu_Elouf&oldid=1294867428"