Palestinian journalist prevented from travelling to collect prestigious award

A Palestinian photojournalist from Gaza has been prevented by the Israeli-led siege from travelling to Moscow where he was due to receive a prestigious award for the second year running. Ashraf Amra, who lives Deir El-Balah Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip, won second place in the Top News category in the Andrei Stenin International Photo Contest.

The contest is organised by the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency and sponsored by the UNESCO commission of the Russian Federation. More than 7,000 photographers from 71 countries submitted entries.

The photograph which won Amra the award showed the father of a Palestinian baby, Rahaf Hassan, lying next to her body and hugging her for the last time. Rahaf was killed in an Israeli airstrike on her family home in Gaza in 2015. Her father was wounded in the attack.

Amra explained that despite all of his efforts to travel to Moscow, they were in vain. He not only blamed the Israelis for this, but also the “disunity” of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.

Yehya Hasan mourns while holding the body of his daughter, Rahaf, during a funeral for the toddler and her pregnant mother on October 11, 2015, at the al-Nusairat refugee camp, in central Gaza Strip. They were killed in an Israeli air stike. This photo is from the same collection as the winning image