RSF awards Abdul Hakim Abu Riash for Gaza photo series
Abdul Hakim Abu Riash's Gaza series won RSF's photo prize for turning hunger, displacement and bombardment into evidence from the enclave.
Abdul Hakim Abu Riash won RSF’s photo category for a series that does more than show destruction. It records Gaza as a place where photography has become evidence, witness and public record under relentless pressure, with images tied directly to hunger, bombardment, displacement and life in tents.
RSF gave Abu Riash the Lucas Dolega-SAIF Photo Prize for Gaza’s Agony: War, Hunger and Loss, the English title RSF uses for the same body of work. The organization said the series documents the humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave, and the honor landed alongside the main press freedom laureates at the 34th RSF Press Freedom Awards ceremony in Marseille. The event was held on 1 June 2026 at the Palais du Pharo during the 77th World News Media Congress, with RSF director general Thibaut Bruttin hosting.
The photo prize has been part of RSF’s awards system since 2023, when the Lucas Dolega photo award was folded into the broader RSF structure. Supported by SAIF and carrying a 10,000-euro award, it is named for French photojournalist Lucas Dolega, who was killed in 2011. RSF said the 2026 jury was chaired by RSF President Pierre Haski and included journalists, press freedom defenders and photojournalists from around the world.
This year’s awards brought together 28 journalists, photographers, press freedom defenders and media outlets from 25 countries, with 21 journalists and photojournalists, five media outlets, one advocate for the right to information and a journalists’ defence collective among those nominated across five categories. Abu Riash’s win stood out because the work sits squarely inside the core task of photojournalism: making suffering legible, and making it hard to look away. His Gaza reporting has also appeared through Al Jazeera in 2024 and 2025, covering displacement, hunger, bombardment and daily life in tents.
That is why this prize matters beyond ceremony. In a war where the visual record is often contested, Abu Riash’s series carries the weight of testimony, and RSF’s choice places that testimony at the center of press freedom’s own fight for memory, access and accountability.
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