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LIGHT IN THE RUBBLE The Gaza War through one photographer’s lens
ASSOCIATED Press photographer Fatima Shbair takes pictures during a protest held outside Gaza City, along the border fence with Israel, against an Israeli military raid that took place in the West Bank, Tuesday, October 25, 2022. AP
By Fatima Shbair
C
The Associated Press
AIRO—Two years into the war in Gaza, and as Israel and Hamas reached a deal raising hopes for the end of the conflict, Associated Press photographer Fatima Shbair looked back at some of her most poignant images. Shbair has seen conflict and violence in the territory since she was a young girl, and when Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack triggered Israel’s campaign of retaliation, she spent several days reporting from her hometown of Gaza City.
PALESTINIANS evacuate wounded people from a building destroyed in an Israeli bombardment in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on October 19, 2023. AP/FATIMA SHBAIR
A PALESTINIAN girl reacts as a child’s body is carried from the rubble of a building after an airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on October 21, 2023. AP/FATIMA SHBAIR
fah, farther south, the city where my family was. I always knew the direction of the house where they were sheltering. When I heard a strike, I looked to see whether the smoke was coming from that direction. Even if it was, I wouldn’t call my family. If you call, you might hear screaming, you might learn they are injured or buried under rubble. It was better to wait at the hospital to see if they came in with the casualties. Maybe they would be brought in wounded. Maybe they would be in the morgue. OK, I would face that. But a call means bad news. I hate calls during war.
tinians and driven most of the population from their homes. Since then, Shbair has been based in Dubai for the AP. These are her photos and the stories behind them.
receive the keys for my new home, an apartment I was building on the top floor of my family home. That morning, as I slept, I heard something I thought was rain or voices. It was rockets, launching from every side of Gaza—Hamas had launched its attack on Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage. That night, we waited on the roof of AP’s office building for Israel’s response. It’s a tall building with several news outlets and a view across Gaza City. Finally, around 3 or 4 a.m., it came. Continuous airstrikes, explosions hitting many places simultaneously. It went all night. We ran to every side of the building, taking pictures. It was the start of Israel’s campaign to recover hostages and eliminate Hamas, whose members and fighters live and operate among Gaza’s population. Many of my journalist colleagues were on that roof as well. Most have since been killed.
Oct. 8, 2023: The first strikes
Oct. 19, 2023: Trapped under rubble
FIRE and smoke rise following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 8, 2023. AP/FATIMA SHBAIR
As Israeli forces advanced, she moved with her family to Rafah, in southern Gaza. For months, she covered the war from Rafah and Khan Younis, often based at hospitals. In April 2024, Shbair and her family were able to leave Gaza, where Israel’s offensive aimed at destroying Hamas has killed tens of thousands of Pales-
On October 7, I was supposed to
This strike happened overnight,
and rescue workers couldn’t go out until morning. People were trapped under rubble for hours. I crawled over wreckage for this shot. It was less than two weeks into the war, and every day we were running, running, running. Everything happened so fast. I had moved my parents and siblings to the south. I operated out of the hospital in Khan Younis. From there, we could follow rescue workers rushing to Israeli airstrike scenes. It became an oppressive, never-pausing routine. Every day, I woke up to blood. I had breakfast in the morgue, next to bodies. We were constantly moving to buildings leveled by airstrikes. At every one, rescue workers carried out bodies and wounded. After each long day, I slept in my car for a few hours. But it wasn’t really sleep, with all the airstrikes overnight – and the screams of the bereaved. I was parked outside the morgue and could hear the families from inside. I rarely saw or spoke to my own family. Later, I moved to base myself in the hospital in Ra-
Oct. 21, 2023: The toll for the children
An airstrike hit a house in Khan Younis just outside a U.N. school full of people driven from their homes. It wasn’t until I got back to AP’s office tent and looked at this picture that I saw this girl – and the look on her face as emergency workers carried a dead child out of the rubble.
It was early in the war, and the girl still reacted with shock. I thought of myself. As a child, when someone in my family passed away, I was afraid to even be in the same room with them to say goodbye. So what must this girl be thinking? She looked so afraid. But as time went on, it became normal. At the scene of every strike, there were lots of children. They got there before us. They would tell us, “There’s still someone trapped inside. A person is crushed between two floors.” One kid told me he saw a leg sticking out of the rubble. Children, describing things difficult for the brain to even conceive. Later, on one of my last days in Gaza, I was in a hospital morgue. It was a chaotic day, with bodies strewn on the floor, the smell of blood everywhere. A child, maybe 5, collected pieces of one body, putting them in a bag for the family to bury. The adults around him were unfazed, like this was normal. What will a child who picks up body parts off the ground remember? Continued on A2
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 57.9540 n JAPAN 0.3787 n UK 77.1773 n HK 7.4475 n CHINA 8.1272 n SINGAPORE 44.6177 n AUSTRALIA 37.9715 n EU 67.0354 n KOREA 0.0407 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.4515 Source: BSP (October 10, 2025)