{"id":98604,"date":"2025-08-26T15:43:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/98604\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T15:43:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:43:15","slug":"from-gaza-to-calgary-pulitzer-prize-winning-photographer-reflects-on-life-in-a-war-zone-and-in-his-new-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/98604\/","title":{"rendered":"From Gaza to Calgary: Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer reflects on life in a war zone and in his new home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last summer, shortly after\u00a0Ahmed Zakot, his wife and three young kids moved from the Gaza Strip to Calgary, the family\u00a0piled into a car and headed straight for the Canadian Rockies.<\/p>\n

Back home in Gaza City, Zakot’s children had few opportunities to play, the once-familiar playgrounds and parks now flattened.<\/p>\n

But in their new lives in Alberta, the freedom to explore nature has been a way for his kids to start healing and “remove the nightmares that they went through during the ongoing war,”\u00a0Zakot said.<\/p>\n

This “paradise,” as Zakot calls it, is a far cry from where he stood just over a year ago.<\/p>\n

\"AhmedAhmed Zakot’s children, in particular, love to explore Canada’s mountains, lakes and nature. (Submitted by Ahmed Zakot)Reporting from Gaza<\/p>\n

Bombardments, funerals, and destruction were often the focus of Zakot’s photos on the ground in Gaza before, and especially after, Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n

“It’s a horrible thing\u00a0\u2026 as a Palestinian journalist,\u00a0covering the stories, the news, events, chasing bombs, funerals, humanitarian stories [and] at the same time caring about your family who have been displaced,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeSmoke and flames billow after Israeli forces struck a high-rise tower in Gaza City, Oct. 7, 2023. (Ahmed Zakot\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

Zakot, a Gazan since he was seven years old, has\u00a0worked as a photojournalist for more than\u00a0two decades, mostly with the global news agency Reuters. And he was part of the Reuters team that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography for its war coverage.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeSmoke rises in the background as Hamas gunmen cruise the streets of Gaza in an Israeli military vehicle that was seized after they infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. (Ahmed Zakot\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

Though Zakot was no stranger to covering the gruesome nature of war in the region, the recent escalation felt “different,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"PalestiniansPalestinians flee their houses heading toward the southern part of Gaza Strip after Israel’s call for more than one million civilians in northern Gaza to move south within 24 hours, amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza City, Oct. 13, 2023. (Ahmed Zakot\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

“We [needed] to be covering every single moment from the beginning to the end, documenting everything to show the truth.”<\/p>\n

\"PalestiniansPalestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on a residential building, in the central Gaza Strip, Oct. 31, 2023. (Ahmed Zakot\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

Since Oct.\u00a07,\u00a02023 Israel has banned foreign media members from independently entering the Gaza Strip, so local journalists have been sharing photos, videos and stories with the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

For about 10\u00a0months, as Palestinians fled Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip, Zakot ran toward the danger and destruction, capturing the war.<\/p>\n

\"AA woman reacts while people bury bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike, at the Nasser hospital premises as Palestinians cannot reach the cemetery due to the Israeli ground operation, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on Jan. 22, 2024. (Ahmed Zakot\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

Equally on Zakot’s mind was the safety of his family, including three young kids, who were living in a tent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They need food. They need water. They need medical support. They need psychological support,” he recalled.<\/p>\n

Remembering Anas al-Sharif<\/p>\n

While balancing journalistic duty and his family’s safety in the months Zakot reported from the bloody conflict in Gaza, he lost \u2014 and continues to lose \u2014 cherished colleagues.<\/p>\n

Recently,\u00a0Israeli forces killed five Al Jazeera journalists<\/a>, who had been operating out of a media tent in front of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.<\/p>\n

LISTEN | Ahmed Zakot remembers Anas al-Sharif:<\/p>\n

The CurrentSix journalists in Gaza killed by Israeli airstrike<\/p>\n

One of those journalists was 28-year-old Anas al-Sharif, whose reporting from the war zone had earned him a reputation as “the voice of Gaza.”<\/p>\n

Israel said the strike successfully targeted Hamas militants, but human rights and press freedom advocates say it was meant to silence journalists reporting on the ground.<\/p>\n

\"AlAl Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Aug. 10, 2025, stands at a landfill as he reports the news in Gaza City on Aug. 13, 2024. (Dawoud Abu Alkas\/File Photo\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

About seven years ago, Zakot remembers meeting a young al-Sharif at a press conference for the Ministry of Health where the early-career journalist walked around the room eagerly shaking hands and introducing himself to the other press members.<\/p>\n

“He was brave and so excited,” Zakot said. “He began his career and [was] dreaming to improve it.”<\/p>\n

LISTEN | The cost of reporting from Gaza:<\/p>\n

Front BurnerThe killing of Gaza\u2019s journalists<\/p>\n

As the more experienced journalist, Zakot said he gave him advice: “The most important thing [is] you have to keep yourself safe because nothing is worth your life.”<\/p>\n

In 2024, as the conflict showed no signs of ceasing, Zakot took his own advice and turned his family’s sights to Canada.<\/p>\n

Changing the focus<\/p>\n

After a challenging application process amidst the dangers of war, Zakot and his family finally arrived in Canada, staggered, in the summer of 2024 through a special visa program for Palestinians with family in Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"InIn one of Zakot’s last photographs from the ground, Palestinians inspect destroyed residential buildings, after the Israeli military withdrew most of its ground troops from the southern Gaza Strip in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on April 7, 2024. (Ahmed Zakot\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

Zakot said, over the years, he had longed to capture more of the beauty of his home, like sunrises and sunsets over Gaza.<\/p>\n

\"BirdsBirds fly during sunrise in Gaza on Aug. 21, 2014. (Ahmed Zakot\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

Now in Alberta, he’s getting the opportunity to focus on the beauty of his Canadian\u00a0home, with the promise of safety and new experiences for his family, like seeing snow for the first time or feeling the chaotic Calgary weather.<\/p>\n

\"ZakotAhmed Zakot and his family experienced snow for the first time after moving from Gaza to Calgary. (Submitted by Ahmed Zakot)<\/p>\n

“We don’t have snow in Gaza. Never. Our weather is good \u2014 beautiful in the summer and beautiful in the winter,” he said. “Here, it’s totally different and we felt [all] four seasons at the same day.<\/p>\n

“The circumstances, the environment, the sightseeing, the beauty thing, the nature here in Calgary especially helped us to adjust [the kids] and to treat them.”<\/p>\n

\"ZakotAhmed Zakot appreciates the beauty of the Canadian Rockies. (Ahmed Zakot)<\/p>\n

Professionally, the Pulitzer Prize winner is still taking pictures as a freelance photojournalist, most recently covering the G7 summit in Kananaskis and the federal election.<\/p>\n

\"PhotographerAhmed Zakot on assignment at a pro-Palestinian protest during the G7 Summit in Kananaskis in June. (Submitted by Ahmed Zakot)<\/p>\n

But Zakot’s aim now is to learn more about what matters locally, so he can share the stories of Calgarians, without forgetting his roots.<\/p>\n

“Step by step, and day by day, we already adjusted \u2014 making friends, relationships with people, communities, charities.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last summer, shortly after\u00a0Ahmed Zakot, his wife and three young kids moved from the Gaza Strip to Calgary,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-98604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}