Public Health

Elliott Woods, for the Pulitzer Center

Elliott Woods traveled to Gaza on a Pulitzer Center grant

“It doesn’t matter who wins in Israel, they are all the same to Gaza.”

Such was the sentiment of Said Sharafa, 26, a Gazan employee of DHL Express, with regard to upcoming Knesset elections in Israel. Sharafa’s statement points to a general sense of foreboding that overshadows an already dark horizon for Gazans, regardless of their political affiliation.

Elliott D. Woods, for the Pulitzer Center
Gaza City — Here are some photos of street art in Gaza City. The Fatah slogans are gone, they've been whitewashed and scribbled over with new Hamas slogans, but the face of Abu Amar — Yasser Arafat, grandfather of Fatah — still keeps watch over at least one corner in every neighborhood.

Elliott Woods, for the Pulitzer Center

Elliott Woods traveled to Gaza on a Pulitzer Center grant

Pulitzer Center grantee Barry Simmon's documentary, "Sons of Lwala," will be recognized by ABC World News Tonight, January 30, 2009. " Since the film's debut in April 2008, it has garnered many awards including the 2009 Dartmouth Martin Luther King Junior Social Justice Award for Emerging Leadership. Themain subject of the documentary, Milton Ochieng, who along with his brother helped build their village's first clinic is ABC's Person of the Week.

Asim Rafiqui in Gaza, for the Pulitzer Center

Are you from Pakistan?

I am not sure how he knew for we had not met nor spoken to each other.

I was just about the get up to leave Al-Awda mosque in Rafah, Gaza when a man sitting behind me introduced himself and asked if I was from Pakistan. Nothing about my appearance that day - I in my conventional trekking pants and checkered shirt, suggested my background.

How did he know?

Food production in Nigeria is not keeping pace with population growth. The question is why? The country is not lacking in arable land and has not had a major drought for many years. So maybe the reason has something to do with changes to the way Nigerian societies are organized.

Elliott D. Woods, for the Pulitzer Center

Gaza City — It's too early to start talking about burnout, but let's face it — it's already here. It's not just me, it's the whole of the Gaza Strip.

Seven-year-old Ahmed Haslan was playing at a neighbor's house last week, in the village of Shujayeh, near Gaza's border with Israel, when a bullet struck him in the head, leaving him within an inch of his life.

Dr. Omar Al-Manassra, a trauma physician at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where Haslan is in critical condition, held an x-ray of Haslan's head, pointing to the bullet that remains lodged in his skull.

Note from the photographer:

"The images are meant to go beyond 'current events'. The panels were made to capture the living, those left behind by the dead, to carry out tasks of finding their buried dead, reconstruction, burial, mourning, sorrow, and stoicism. The images are about the living, not about the dead or the mayhem. About what is left behind when both the violence ends and the news media walks away, the aftermath situations to which we rarely pay attention, and the sheer human courage needed to live through it." - Asim Rafiqui

"Elliott Woods arrived in Gaza two days before Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire, ending its devastating twenty-two day offensive against Hamas. While in Gaza, he has photographed the damage left in the wake of Israel's air and land campaign extensively. He is currently covering Gazan politics and culture for the Pulitzer Center."

Elliott Woods and Asim Rafiqui, for the Pulitzer CenterThere has been a lot of talk about allegations of Israeli war crimes during Israel's recent three-week war on Hamas.  Obviously, as journalists, we are not in a position to prosecute or arrest suspected offenders — but we do have a responsibility to report what we see, and to not shy from the evidence and the real story of violent and unnecessary destruction here for the sake of appealing to American media audiences, who may have little or no interest in stories about human suffering, wanton demolishing of civilian structures, or anything else that portrays the Israeli operation as anything other than a normal modern military action against a discrete threat.Working in the wake of the Israeli offensive — among the heaps of wrecked homes and wrecked lives — is not easy, though obviously Asim and I are keenly aware that our professional difficulties pale in comparison to the sorrow and hardship that Gazans are experiencing at the moment, as they try to piece together their broken world, as they struggle to collect themselves from a brutal beating without any justification.