CPJ is honored to present its 2024 International Press Freedom Award to Palestinian journalist Shrouq Al Aila.
Shrouq Al Aila is a Palestinian journalist, producer, and researcher reporting from the Gaza Strip. Al Aila took charge of Ain Media, an independent production company specializing in professional media services, after her husband Roshdi Sarraj – a co-founder of the company – was killed in the ongoing Israel-Gaza war. She continues to cover the war and its devastating impact on Gaza’s residents despite having been displaced several times in an effort to evade Israeli attacks.
Al Aila started working for Ain Media in 2019, later marrying Sarraj. On the morning of October 22, 2023, as the family was about to have breakfast at home, shrapnel from an Israeli missile attack on a nearby house killed Sarraj and injured Al Aila and their infant daughter.
Israel’s attacks on Gaza have taken a record toll on Palestinian journalists, and Ain Media has suffered other losses. Early in the war, photographers Ibrahim Lafi was killed and Haitham Abdelwahid went missing along with a close journalist friend, Nidal Al-Wahidi. And in 2018, Sarraj’s founding partner at Ain Media, Yaser Murtaja, was murdered by an Israeli sniper.
Despite these tragedies and the conditions she continues to endure, Al Aila took on her late husband’s role to become the head of Ain Media, covering the war and displacement of Gaza’s residents. Her story is emblematic of the plight of Palestinian women journalists reporting from Gaza who have endured the unthinkable and continue to report the news for the world to see.
As a woman journalist covering a war in a highly conservative region, Al Aila’s story of survival honors the extraordinary courage and dedication of Palestinian journalists killed or arrested by Israeli authorities.