Malak A Tantesh, 20, ‘showed immense talent and bravery’, said judges at Media Freedom awards in London
The UK’s Society of Editors has named Malak A Tantesh, the Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent, as young journalist of the year in the national press category at this year’s Media Freedom awards.
The judges said Tantesh “showed immense talent and bravery in some of the hardest conditions ever faced by a journalist, she continued to report while having to forage for food and facing the constant risk of bombing and the threat of targeted killing”.
Tantesh, 20, reported for the Guardian from Gaza for 18 months. She described the impact of the war, losing close relatives and witnessing the aftermath of bombing first hand. She wrote about her family’s return to her birthplace in Beit Lahia, to find their home in ruins and their orchard destroyed. “My memories are crushed and buried,” she wrote.
In October, Tantesh published an article looking back on two years of war, which took the people of Gaza through a “gateway to hell”. There were times, she wrote, when the surviving members of her family envied the dead.
