Only on AP: Rich multiformat project tells the intimate story of Gaza family and the toll of four wars
In Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 11, 2021, Mahmoud Nassir, 10, looks out from his home, heavily damaged by airstrikes during May’s 11-day war between Hamas and Israel. Members of the Nassir family and their neighbors have endured four wars in 13 years. A United Nations inspector said the building will have to come down, but even with the expectation that conflict will erupt again, the family plans to rebuild. (AP Photo / Felipe Dana)
By Fares Akram, Adam Geller, Felipe Dana, Joe Federman, Wafaa Shurafa, Aya Batrawy, Andrew Milligan, Kati Perry, Helen Wieffering, Jeannie Ohm, Natalie Castañeda and Samantha Shotzbarger
An AP team encompassing all formats, an array of digital skills and expert reporting from two continents came together to tell the story of more than a decade of conflict in Gaza in a new way: a sweeping look at the cost of war that combined the scope of the recurring conflict with an intimate profile of a single family and neighborhood that had suffered in each of the wars.
The twin approaches enabled AP to provide perspective on the story that no news outlet has achieved while keeping the human toll front and center. Each of the project’s elements was strong on its own: fearless, honest reporting and elegant writing; striking, evocative photos of the family; an innovative 3D model created by SITU,a forensic architecture firm that partnered with AP on the project; data analysis that tallied the cost in lives, structures and opportunities lost; and engaging interactive graphics that brought the statistics to life.
For the first time, AP combined these elements into a dynamic “scrollytelling” experience, all while overcoming the challenges of getting into and out of Gaza given border closures and COVID restrictions.
AP Gaza journalist Fares Akram,Barcelona-based visual journalist Felipe Dana and New York enterprise writer Adam Geller,collaborating with Middle East News Director Karin Laub and the rest of the Gaza staff,conceptualized the project,scouting the location and ultimately finding the family that would tell a broader story about Gaza through four wars in 13 years. Essential to the ambitious initiative was the deep knowledge that Fares, Gaza producer Wafaa Shurafa and news director Joe Federman brought to the project.
Members of the Nassir family spend time inside their home, heavily damaged by airstrikes during May’s 11-day war, in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 11, 2021. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A man rides his motorcycle past heavily damaged homes on Al-Baali Street in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip , Friday, June 18, 2021. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
On June 11, 2021, Jawaher Nassir surveys the neighborhood from a gaping hole in her home, heavily damaged by airstrikes during May’s 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. “Our memories are here,” she says. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Zaki and Jawaher Nassir sit inside their heavily damaged home in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 20, 2021. Israel says the airstrike in the early hours of May 14 was targeting a tunnel used by Palestinian militants in the area. The airstrike did not hit the home directly but the force blew walls and ceilings apart and left deep craters in the street and yard. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Zaki, center, and Jawaher Nassir have dinner with their sons, June 21, 2021, in an apartment they rented after their house was heavily damaged by airstrikes in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
On June 13, 2021, a poster with a photo of Adham Nassir, a cart driver who died in the 2008 war, hangs on the wall of his widow’s house, which was heavily damaged by airstrikes in the recent 11-day war in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Chadi Nassir, 7, sits on a donkey cart as his brother, Mahmoud, loads it with belongings from their damaged house in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 13, 2021. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Chadi Nassir, 7, looks outside as two of his brothers play video games in the rubble of their heavily damaged home in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 11, 2021. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
On June 17, 2021, Khadra Nassir, center, holds her newborn grandson, Mohamed Nassir, named after an uncle who was killed during the May 11-day war, in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A man rides his motorcycle, June 11, 2021, on Al-Baali Street as Palestinians stand amid homes heavily damaged by airstrikes in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A room in the heavily damaged Nassir home is lit using electricity from a neighbor, in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 11, 2021. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
On June 14, 2021, a family sits inside a makeshift tent built among the rubble of their home, destroyed by a May airstrike in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
On June 14, 2021, a man walks atop the rubble of a house destroyed by an airstrike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Mohamed Al-Masri, who was injured in the recent 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, poses for a photo in his house in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 20, 2021. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
On June 18, 2021, a resident of Al-Baali Street cleans a room inside her home, heavily damaged by May airstrikes in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A June 18, 2021 aerial view of a courtyard and houses heavily damaged by Israeli airstrikes in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
On June 12, 2021, Jalal Nassir stands with his son in their home, damaged in the May 11-day war in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
On June 13, 2021, Khaldiya Nassir, holding a boy at center, sits with other family members near the entrance of her house, heavily damaged by airstrikes in the May 11-day war in Beit Hanoun. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
On June 11, 2021, Jawaher Nassir stands inside her home, heavily damaged by airstrikes during May’s 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Dana and Fares spent nearly a month on the ground identifying the place and family,then,along with Geller,they spent countless hours with the Nassir family over weeks,“peeling back layers of the onion” each time,as Geller put it. They came away with remarkable,intimate detail despite the need for translations.
Dana also convinced other families to allow him to photograph their children traumatized by successive wars and their families’ losses. Photographing the mental state of anyone,let alone children, is difficult; Dana’s images reveal a broken world through their eyes, complemented by heart-wrenching vignettes from Dubai reporter Aya Batrawy.
Suzy Ishkontana, 7, poses for a portrait, June 16, 2021, in the house of a family member where she is currently living after her house was destroyed in an airstrike during May’s 11-day war in Gaza City. Suzy’s mother, her two brothers and two sisters — ages 2 to 9 — died in the May 16 Israeli attack on the densely packed al-Wahda Street in Gaza City. Israeli authorities say the bombs’ target was Hamas tunnels; 42 people died. “My kids who died and my wife, they are now in a safe place and there is no worry about them, but my greater fear is for Suzy,” says her father, Riad Ishkontana. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Oday Abu Muawad, 6, poses for a portrait, June 11, 2021, at a school run by the United Nations where his family is taking shelter after their home was destroyed during May’s 11-day war, in northern Gaza Strip. His mother — eight months pregnant — and four children, ages 3 to 11, fled their home in northern Gaza just before it was destroyed. Before the war, Oday always smiled and loved to joke around with people. He preferred playing with older kids and sitting with adults, his father says. “Now, he watches kids playing on the television and asks: ‘Why can’t we play like them?’” Abu Muawad says. “I don’t know how to reply, what to tell him.” And in the night, he often wakes up screaming. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Maya Abu Muawad, 8, poses for a portrait, June 11, 2021, at a school run by the United Nations where her family is taking shelter after their home was destroyed during May’s 11-day war in northern Gaza Strip. After Israeli airstrikes on the family’s home, Maya was separated from her mother. Alone and afraid, she rode in an ambulance to safer ground. But for 15 minutes, she was locked in the wailing vehicle with a dying person and a wounded boy, her neighbor. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Batool al-Masri, 14, poses for a portrait at her house in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 20, 2021. In a field near their home on May 10, Batool carried her cousin Yazan, a toddler barely 2 years old. “Twenty-four hours a day she was spoiling him,” says Batool’s father, Mohammed Atallah al-Masri. Then, an explosion. It’s not clear whether the rocket was fired by Israel or Hamas. But in an instant, eight people were dead, including six children. Yazan bled out in front of Batool. She tried to save him, ignoring injuries to her legs and pelvis. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Abdullah Srour, 16, poses for a portrait in his house in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, June 19, 2021. For years, Abdullah lived in a state of constant fear. He’s survived four wars in Gaza, and with each war he grows more afraid, more insular. “After this war,” says his mother, “he’s regressed to a child of 5 years old.” – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Youssef al-Madhoun, 11, poses for a portrait at his house in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, June 19, 2021. Before the war, Youssef excelled in school and talked of one day becoming a doctor. Now, said his father, Ahmed Awad Selim al-Madhoun, he’s afraid to sleep at night, afraid to step outside the house alone. He leaves the door open when he’s in the bathroom. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Elien al-Madhoun, 6, poses for a portrait, June 19, 2021, at her grandfather’s house, where she is living after her home was destroyed during May’s 11-day war, in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip. Elien was not yet born when her father lost his home in the 2014 Gaza War. She doesn’t entirely understand life and death, but in May she screamed out at the sounds of airstrikes and shelling in Bait Lahia says her father, Ahmed Rabah al-Madhoun. “When nine homes are completely destroyed next to one another and my daughter sees this, she can’t understand what happened,” he says. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Qasim al-Masri, 6, poses for a portrait at his house in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 20, 2021. A May 10 explosion in a field near their home killed his best friend and cousin, Marwan, 7. They’d been inseparable, even in school, his father says. Marwan’s only brother, Ibrahim, 11, also was killed. The attack “completely changed” Qasim, his father says. The young boy talks to himself. At night, he’s paralyzed by fear and does not get out of bed to use the bathroom. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Lama Sihweil, 14, poses for a portrait in her house in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, June 20, 2021. When the 2014 war broke out, Lama and her family fled their home in Beit Hanoun when the Israeli army invaded, joining some 3,300 Palestinians crammed into the U.N.-run Abu Hussein school in the Jabaliya refugee camp. As they slept, Israeli shells pounded the school and the street. Three of 7-year-old Lama’s cousins — ages 14, 16 and 26 — were among the 16 killed in that attack. The 2014 war claimed more than 2,100 Palestinian lives in Gaza. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Thaim Abu Oda, 5, poses for a portrait at the end of a therapy session at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme center in Gaza City, June 10, 2021. For 11 days in May, the boy’s life was devastated by war — by the terrifying boom of fighter jets overhead and the bombs that shook his neighborhood. He stopped eating. He lost more than 5 kilograms (11 pounds). His face became gaunt and his ribs protruded. He lost sleep, too, especially after hearing his grandfather had survived an airstrike on his building and had been hospitalized for breathing problems. – AP Photo / Felipe Dana
An interdepartmental team of AP staffers made key contributions:
— News application developer Andrew Milligan created the scrolling presentation,enhancing the immersive experience. — Data/graphics journalist Kati Perry developed the interactive graphics. — Storytelling producer Natalie Castañeda integrated the photos into the presentation. — Storytelling producer Samantha Shotzbarger crafted alternative text to make the experience accessible to screen readers. — Data journalist Helen Wieffering gathered data on costs of each of the wars and provided analysis. — Global investigations editor for video Jeannie Ohm spearheaded the collaboration with SITU and oversaw the consumer-ready video. — Immersive storytelling producer Raghu Vadarevu directed the presentation.
For a pioneering project that brought AP’s audience up close to the lived experience of Gaza and of a family tragically buffeted by war over 13 years,Geller,Dana,Akram,Federman,Shurafa,Batrawy,Milligan,Wieffering,Perry,Ohm, Castañeda and Shotzbarger share AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winner.
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