2013 Photo Contest, Spot News, 1st prize

Gaza

Photographer

Bernat Armangue

The Associated Press

20 November, 2012

Israel launched a military offensive against targets in Hamas-ruled Gaza, on 14 November. Israeli authorities said that Operation Pillar of Defense was aimed at protecting citizens from the hundreds of missiles fired into Israel by militants in Gaza.

About the photographer

Bernat Armangue

Bernat Armangue was born in Barcelona in 1978. He became an Associated Press photographer in 2005. As an international news agency photographer, he has covered a variety of news...

Background story

Gaza City, Palestinian Territories

Women grieve at the funeral of Salem Paul Sweliem, a Greek Orthodox carpenter hit by shrapnel during an airstrike on a high-rise in Gaza City, in which Ramez Harb—a senior figure in the Islamic Jihad’s military wing—was killed.

 

Israel launched a military offensive against targets in Hamas-ruled Gaza, on 14 November. Israeli authorities said that Operation Pillar of Defense was aimed at protecting citizens from the hundreds of missiles fired into Israel by militants in Gaza.

Initially, Israeli airstrikes were directed at rocket-storage sites, and Hamas security facilities, as well as at smuggling tunnels and electricity sources. On the first day of the attack, Ahmed al-Jabari, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, was killed in a pinpoint airstrike as he was riding in a car on a Gaza street. 

Attacks soon escalated to include the police headquarters in Gaza City, and homes of suspected Hamas activists. Civilian casualties began to rise. A ceasefire was reached on 21 November.

Technical information

Shutter Speed
1/320 sec
Focal length
35 mm
F-Stop
8
ISO
1250
Camera
Canon EOS-1DX

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