“Covering Gaza is personal. I know the people and the places that I photograph. I know them intimately. The places I photograph are also full of my own experiences and emotions. Covering Gaza is personal.”

Wissam Nassar was born and bred in Gaza. “My family are refugees. I grew up in a modest family – my father was a trader and my mother a housewife. I was the eldest of eight kids, and part of my family duties was looking after my younger brothers and sisters. 

“I studied for a BA in journalism at the Islamic University – which was just destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. In my first year at university I began training with Reuters – shadowing photographers who were on assignment here in Gaza – it was an amazing classroom. For the past sixteen years I have covered the Israeli-Palestine conflict for the New York Times.

“The current conflict is much more violent. I had to send my family to Egypt for their own safety. It is difficult to work in your own country during a time of war.

“I spend the nights in my office and my days on the road, surrounded by ruined buildings. I have photographed moments of life, moments of death and people trying to survive, or just trying to do normal things – like bathing their kids. I have photographed destroyed homes and hospitals. Funerals and empty markets and the daily lives of people returning to their neighbourhoods during moments of reprieve.

“I hear about the destruction of places where I grew up. Friends and relatives being displaced or worse, killed. I have witnessed people fleeing their home, while others were still trapped under the rubble. I have seen devastated families, weeping, screaming and looking with great grief at the remains of their demolished homes. 

“Many people do not wait for their homes to be repaired and instead return to their dilapidated homes, setting up tents amongst the rubble, fearing that they might be uprooted from their own birthplace. These are not just numbers, they have names and are people I know.  

“One moment that I will never forget was photographing Sumaya Hasna, a 4-year-old girl whose home was destroyed and her family dispersed. She was separated from her family at the hospital and I followed her as she was being treated, scared and all alone and lost in the chaos of the emergency room. 

“All this motivates me to go out and show the world what is happening. I focus on how the people want to live normal lives – spending time at parks, beaches and coffee shops despite the rubble scattered everywhere.”