Seven New York Times photojournalists describe moments that have defined a year of war.
The moment the first alarms sounded in Israel on October 7, New York Times photographers began to document the unfolding crisis.
Over the year that followed, in Israel and in the Gaza Strip, they have tracked the Hamas-led attacks and their aftermath, the Israeli military campaign and the human toll of the conflict.
Here, seven photographers who have covered the war for the Times talk about the images that have stayed with them most.
Ashkelon, Israel, October 2023: Running for shelter
A rocket siren was screaming when I took this photograph. It was the afternoon of October 7, and the woman running for shelter is Evgenia Simanovich, who had been surveying the situation around her home in Ashkelon, a coastal city near the border of the Gaza Strip, and checking on brush fires that were burning nearby.
I had come there by driving toward the plume of black smoke that was still billowing after the morning’s salvo – scores of rockets were fired in the opening hours of the Hamas attack. Simanovich and I had just started to talk. But in Ashkelon, you have only seconds to reach safety once a siren sounds.
Looking back, I feel this image captures the sense of shock, disorientation and distress felt by Israelis as the attack unfolded. Even at this moment, long before the extent of the assault was clear, it already felt different from previous conflicts. But we could not have imagined what was to come.
- Tamir Kalifa
Kfar Aza, Israel, October 2023: Bringing out the bodies
On October 10 in the kibbutz Kfar Aza, the atmosphere was hot with uncertainty and fear. It was the third day after the Hamas-led attack, and my second day in Israel. Soldiers were retrieving bodies from homes, and the corpses of some of the assailants were still lying on the ground, untouched.
This was one of the first places hit in the attack. When I arrived, I was shocked by how close the kibbutz was to the Gaza security fence and by the realisation that people had been living peacefully so near a hostile neighbour.
I remember having to document what I was witnessing carefully. At that time, we did not know just how many Israelis had been killed or abducted. Rumours were everywhere.
- Sergey Ponomarev
Central Gaza Strip, October 2023: A family’s grief
I saw this woman at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah. So many people had been killed in the area that day that bodies were lined up outside, and she was moving along the rows, looking for her brothers and her sister.
Once she found her sister, who she said had been pregnant and had had contractions the night before, she began talking to her. “You were scared of giving birth, and now you have gone to your rest before you had to go through it,” she said. She spoke to her brothers, too, calling out their names and talking about their qualities. She was crying but also holding herself steadfast, and people were comforting her.
I have seven sisters. I often think of them when I am photographing, and I worry about them constantly. I also worry about my children, especially when I see journalist colleagues losing their children to bombardment. What would it be for me if I lost them? Or if they lost me?
- Samar Abu Elouf
Re’im, Israel, October 2023: What they carried
Walking through the site of the Nova festival massacre, I saw belongings that reminded me of my own: flip-flops, toothbrushes, backpacks, all with familiar brand names. The area had become a closed military zone, almost deserted, and the only sound was bombing in the distance.
At that moment, this tragedy was painfully close to home. Some of these items might belong to people I knew personally – some who are now dead, and some who survived.
The contrast between the beauty of this region and the remnants of so much killing, with the lingering smell of death even in the open air, brought a combination of emotions I never imagined I would experience.
- Amit Elkayam
Khan Younis, Gaza, October 2023: Casualties
The look on this boy’s face has haunted me.
The night I took this photograph, I was sleeping at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. A strike had sounded nearby, and when I heard ambulances, I rushed to the emergency room entrance. This boy was one of the first to be carried in through the noise and chaos.
The paramedics moved him inside quickly – I saw him only through my camera’s viewfinder. But I could see he was covered in dust, ash and blood, and his eyes pierced me.
After that, the wounded and the dead kept on coming. The air smelled of blood.
- Yousef Masoud
Gaza City, November 2023: In the dark
These troops are outside Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex, where Israeli forces had begun a raid not quite 48 hours earlier.
They took us there under a moonless sky, and the drivers of the armoured vehicles wore night-vision goggles to navigate the dusty roads. As we entered Gaza City, we could make out the barest outline of the destruction that surrounded us.
At the hospital site, we encountered ruins and desolation of an extent that was difficult to assess – the army did not allow us to interview patients or medical staff. Israel claimed that the complex functioned as a command centre and arms depot for Hamas, but what we were shown was inconclusive.
It was five weeks into the conflict, and the death toll in Gaza was already estimated at 11,000.
- Daniel Berehulak
Tel Aviv, Israel, December 2023: The first smile
This is Gal Goldstein-Almog, who was kidnapped and taken into Gaza alongside his mother, his brother and one of his sisters. He is lying beside his grandfather, Giora.
I took this photo as part of a project in which I photographed the hostages who had been released or rescued, and I had been with the family for days. They were staying at a hotel, and late one evening I learned that Giora was staying with his grandchildren through the night to help them sleep and comfort them when they had nightmares. Their father and older sister were killed in the family home on October 7.
This laugh they shared, just before Gal managed to fall asleep, was the first happy moment I captured after months of documenting war and grief. It made me dream of a better ending for all the children involved in this war.
- Avishag Shaar-Yashuv
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: The New York Times
Photographs by: Tamir Kalifa, Sergey Ponomarev, Samar Abu Elouf, Amit Elkayam, Yousef Masoud, Daniel Berehulak and Avishag Shaar-Yashuv
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
