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American Press Club awards Al-Dahdouh the John Aubuchon Award

The National Press Club of the United States announced that Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh, the director of Al Jazeera’s office in Gaza, will be awarded the 2024 John Aubuchon International Press Freedom Award.

The club said in a statement: “Granting Al-Dahdouh this award, which is considered the highest award granted by the club, comes against the backdrop of Al-Dahdouh’s great struggle to keep the sector’s news flowing to the world.”

The statement stressed that Al-Dahdouh continued his work despite being subjected to indescribable personal suffering, as he lost his wife, son and daughter in an airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp on October 28, 2023, and then his remaining son Hamza was killed in an Israeli airstrike on January 7, 2024. Al-Dahdouh himself was shot at on December 15 by an Israeli drone while covering the bombing of a school in Khan Younis.

The statement continued: "But despite all the unimaginable pain and sadness, Al-Dahdouh continued his work to convey the truth to the world." “Dahdouh’s endurance, strength and perseverance are an inspiration to reporters around the world,” said National Press Club President Emily Wilkins, who traveled to Berlin to personally present Dahdouh with his award. The statement concluded that the sadness of Al-Dahdouh's story is compounded by the fact that 137 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7, at least 5 of whom were killed in targeted Israeli operations, calling for an investigation into all these cases.

Founded in 1908, the National Press Club has 3,000 members representing nearly every major press organization and is a leading voice for press freedom in the United States and around the world.