Saher Alghorra picked up his first camera less than a decade ago – but his Pulitzer-winning photos stopped me in my tracks

Tamer Hassan al-Shafei and his family sit for an evening meal during Ramadan in the remains of their home, overlooking the ruins of Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip on March 4, 2025.

Saher Alghorra picked up his first camera in 2017 and started working as a photojournalist in 2021 – but when I saw the Gaza-based photographer’s award-winning photographs, the images stopped me in my tracks. Alghorra has won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for a series documenting the devastation and starvation in Gaza.

Algorra’s photographs carry tangible emotion as Palestinians hold out pans for a meal, as families mourn losses, as a mother holds a starving two-year-old denied care at a hospital, as a front loader digs a mass grave, as a child stands near a destroyed car.