New York Times Scrambles to Defend Pulitzer-Winning Photo of ‘Starving’ Gazan

Self-perpetuating Columbia-based board also honors column likening Charlie Kirk to a Nazi

By Ira Stoll

The New York Times is scrambling to defend the integrity of its Gaza-based photographer and his work, which won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday, after a press watchdog organization accused him of “staged scenes” that were closely coordinated with the Hamas terrorist organization.

The prizes largely honored articles that bashed Trump—his alleged abuses of power, his destruction of the federal workforce, his venality—or Israel.

What has kicked up something of a storm—at least enough to generate an official if somewhat vague defense from the New York Times—is the prize to Times contributing photographer Saher Alghorra for pictures he took in areas of Gaza that were largely under the control of Hamas terrorists. The New York Times has conceded “Hamas restricts journalists in Gaza,” but it’s not clear how that affected the work of Alghorra, who, one prize website reports, “studied public relations, media and photography at the University of Palestine.” In 2024 a friend started a GoFundMe to try to raise $36,000 to evacuate him and his family from Gaza, but that campaign was paused.

The watchdog group Honest Reporting said the Alghorra Pulitzer is “a prize built on staged scenes, a manufactured ‘famine’ narrative, and intimate access to Hamas terrorists.”

Said Honest Reporting, “One of the winning photos shows 2‑year‑old Yazan Abu al‑Foul, turned by the NYT into the face of children ‘starving’ because of Israel. Yet the original wire copy notes that Yazan has four older siblings – none of whom appear in the Pulitzer portfolio – and the same mother and child were repeatedly shot by multiple agencies in near‑identical poses, raising serious questions about staging, consent and how one family was repackaged into a global ‘famine’ poster‑child.” Many of the emaciated-appearing children used in press photographs aimed at charging Israel with imposing starvation had underlying preexisting other health conditions that caused their distorted appearance, though Yazan Abu al‑Foul is not known to be one of those.

The watchdog group went on, “Another Pulitzer‑winning image shows Hamas terrorists in Khan Younis reportedly carrying the remains of an Israeli hostage – a glossy, carefully composed shot that by definition required close coordination and trust with an internationally‑designated terror group. And this is the same Saher Alghorra HonestReporting exposed for calling the Bibas family ‘prisoners’ in his own Instagram post, faithfully echoing Hamas’ language for murdered hostages.”