2013 Photo Contest, Spot News, 1st prize

Gaza

Photographer

Bernat Armangue

The Associated Press

18 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

A man cries beside the bodies of four children, in the morgue of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Health officials said the children and five women were among the dead after a missile destroyed a house in a residential neighborhood.

 

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
1/80 sec
Focal length
35 mm
F-Stop
3.5
ISO
800
Camera
Canon EOS-1DX

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