Middle East Eye Palestine reporter Maha Hussaini nominated for top award
Middle East Eye freelance correspondent Maha Hussaini on Thursday was named among the finalists for a top journalism award, the Martin Adler Prize, for her reporting from the besieged Gaza Strip.
The Martin Adler Prize, awarded by the Rory Peck Trust and part of its annual awards, honours the late Swedish journalist who was killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 2006 and is awarded to “a local freelancer or field producer who has made a significant contribution to newsgathering”.
Hussaini began work as a freelance journalist in July 2014 during the Israeli offensive on Gaza, producing, preparing and presenting reports on the conflict that resulted in the deaths of more than 2,200 Palestinians and around 60 Israelis.
She has been writing for Middle East Eye since 2018 on a variety of political and social topics. The pieces submitted for the award included "Worsening conditions lead more Palestinians to take their own lives"; "'All that’s left are their school uniforms': Israeli air strike kills eight Palestinian relatives"; and "Gaza 2020: Our worst nightmare is when it starts raining".
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
Hussaini was praised by judges for the "freshness and humanity" of her stories.
"The way she delivered them, given all the problems of working in Gaza and being a woman in a predominately male, conservative environment, is incredible. The originality of her storytelling, the way she writes, her skill in describing people, place and condition to convey the whole story is supreme. There are some lines in those stories that will stay with you forever,” the jury said.
In June, another MEE freelance correspondent in Palestine, West Bank-based Shatha Hammad, won the New Voice category for the One World Media Awards.
The other finalists nominated for the award are Fadi Al Halibi, a freelancer based in the Syrian opposition-held enclave of Idlib, who was nominated by Channel 4 News in the UK, and Rohini Mohan, an Indian journalist nominated by Vice News.
The winner of the prize, part of the Rory Peck Awards, will be announced on 24 November.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
