Saher Alghorra: Witnessing Gaza

The international media has been barred from entering the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war. For this reason, the majority of the images from the region that have gone out into the world were produced by local journalists. Saher Alghorra is one of them. His pictures are taken up close and are the work of a photographer who has experienced the same reality as the people in front of his lens.

When Saher Alghorra’s father gifted him his first camera, in 2017, he began by taking photographs of daily life around his home. In 2018, he extended his focus and started documenting conflict-related events, including the ‘Great Return March’ demonstrations at the border, which he covered for a year. A few years later, his homeland was to become the centre of a significantly larger conflict. Because the international media has been barred from entering the Gaza Strip during the war, the rest of the world learns about it primarily through pictures taken by local photographers like himself. 

Witnessing Gaza covers the full breadth of the year 2025. The pictures of the ceasefire in Gaza City, of the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, of the burials of nameless corpses returned by Israel to Gaza - these moving images stay in the mind for a long time – as do the photographs of a family breaking their fast during Ramadan with what little they have left, and of children watching a film in an improvised cinema amid the ruins. Regardless of whether his images depict grand gestures or instances of quiet human connection, these moments are given equal prominence in this project: they all show people trying to keep their daily lives afloat within surroundings marked by war.

Alghorra’s work, which has brought him international recognition over recent years, arose amidst the tension between documentation and survival: he himself has suffered the impact of the war; six times he and his family were forced to find a new place of refuge, whilst he continued to pursue his journalistic efforts under adverse circumstances. This is why his photography is not only defined by patience and precise observation, but also by a great degree of empathy – he knows exactly what his protagonists are living through. His studies of media and public relations have given him the ability to approach people and build up trust – a capacity he was able to develop further as a result of the extreme conditions in the field. This explains the emotional immediacy of his images, which is conveyed unfiltered to the viewer. 

Alghorra’s images are understood as a historic testimony – and as an assignment. It is important to him that future generations should be able to understand, through his pictures, what people in the Gaza Strip have gone through and continue to go through to this day. Consequently, Witnessing Gaza is a testament to everything war does to daily life; what it takes and what it leaves behind. The project reveals a region that carries on – a people who maintain their dignity under extreme conditions, while trying not to lose sight of everyday life. The essential statement offered by his work lies in this juxtaposition of loss and perseverance. 

Saher Alghorra’s series was submitted by Gaia Tripoli, who is part of this year’s group of international LOBA nominators.