Close up: Photographer Hatem Moussa
In this Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014 photo, Associated Press photographer Hatem Moussa works, in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Hatem Moussa joined The Associated Press as a photojournalist in 1998. Since then, the Gaza City-based Moussa has covered repeated rounds of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in Gaza, including the wars of 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014. In addition to images of conflict, he has captured the daily lives of Palestinians.
He has won numerous awards, including the special jury prize at the Days Japan International Photojournalism Awards in 2013 and AP’s Gramling Spirit Award in 2010. The Gramling judges saluted him “for inspiring his colleagues with his devotion to work and his enduring enthusiasm despite great hardship in one of the world's most volatile hotspots.”
Moussa was seriously injured in back-to-back explosions on Aug. 13, while taking pictures at a Gaza police dump for unexploded Israeli ordnance, in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. AP video journalist Simone Camilli and Palestinian translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash were killed in the incident, along with four Gaza police officers.
This Monday, Aug. 11 2014 photo shows Associated Press video journalist Simone Camilli in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip. Camilli, 35, was killed in an ordnance explosion in the Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014 together with Palestinian translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash and three members of the Gaza police. Police said four other people were seriously injured, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Camilli became the first foreign journalist killed in the current round of Israel-Hamas fighting, which has taken more than 1,900 Palestinian lives and 67 on the Israeli side. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least five Palestinian journalists or media workers have been killed in the fighting.
Moussa told a colleague that the AP team was filming at the scene when an initial explosion went off. He said he was hit by shrapnel and began to run when a second blast knocked him out. He woke up in a nearby hospital and underwent surgery before being transferred to a hospital in Israel.
Moussa, 40, is known to friends and colleagues as the “Bulldozer” because of his strength under pressure, a quality he displayed again during this war.
This gallery is a selection of outstanding imagery produced by AP photographer Hatem Moussa taken throughout his time covering Gaza City.
Photos by Hatem Moussa
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