Distinctive AP photo project depicts Israelis, Palestinians sharing…

A pair of AP photographers, as separate as the people they cover, join forces remotely to reveal the shared humanity on beaches in Gaza and Tel Aviv.

For years, AP’s Khalil Hamra and Oded Balilty have captured the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through their award-winning photography. This summer they turned their lenses away from the violence and onto a place of refuge for both sides: the stretch of beaches along the Mediterranean Sea.

With Balilty making images from Tel Aviv and Hamra from Gaza, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers produced an evocative essay showing Palestinians basking in the sun, free of the fences and guard towers that define their lives, and Israelis relaxing in the sand some 70 kilometers (40 miles) away, free from fear of the next eruption of fighting.

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Lifeguard stations stand on the beach of Gaza City, left, Sept. 27, 2021, and at right, early in the morning on the Mediterranean Sea beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, Aug. 17, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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Israeli kids, left, snorkel at Tel Aviv’s beach, June 26, 2021, and at right, Palestinians enjoy a summer day swimming in the Mediterranean Sea on Gaza’s beach, June 26, 2021.

AP Photos / Oded Balilty, left; Khalil Hamra

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Palestinians spend a summer day on the beach as the sun sets over the Mediterranean Sea in Gaza City, Aug. 20, 2021, left, and at right, Israelis foot-volley a ball on the beach in Tel Aviv, June 12, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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A Palestinian man, left, wears a necklace with a map of Palestine as he poses for a photo on the beach of Gaza City, Sept. 10, 2021, and at right, an Israeli beach worker wears a necklace with the Star of David pendant while posing early in the morning on the beach in Tel Aviv, July 2, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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Palestinians cover a boy with sand on the beach at Gaza City, Sept. 24, 2021, left, and at right, Israeli youth do the same on the beach in Tel Aviv, June 20, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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People enjoy a day the beach in Tel Aviv, Israel, June 12, 2021, left, and at right, Palestinians exercise on the beach in Gaza City, July 16, 2021.

AP Photos / Oded Balilty, left; Khalil Hamra

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Palestinians, left, enjoy a summer day on the beach of Gaza City, July 10, 2020, and at right, two Israeli women take a selfie on the beach in Tel Aviv, Aug. 13, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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Palestinians listen to music and smoke a hookah on the beach of Gaza City, Aug. 12, 2021, left, and at right, two Israelis smoke a hookah on a dog-friendly beach in Tel Aviv, July 10, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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Israeli kids jump into the Mediterranean Sea at Tel Aviv’s beach, July 4, 2020, left, and at right, Palestinians jump into the water at the beach in Gaza City, Aug. 6, 2021.

AP Photos / Oded Balilty, left; Khalil Hamra

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Palestinians play cards on a summer day at the beach in Gaza City, July 9, 2021, left, and at right, Israelis play chess on Tel Aviv’s beach, July 4, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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Israelis play with their pets on a dog-friendly beach in Tel Aviv, Sept. 25, 2021, left, and at right, Palestinians ride horses while others swim on the beach at Gaza City, Sept. 17, 2021.

AP Photos / Oded Balilty, left; Khalil Hamra

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Palestinian children ride a camel on the beach of Gaza City, Aug. 20, 2021, left, and at right, Israeli man Moshe Nehoshtan walks with his four pet rats around his neck on Tel Aviv’s beach, June 11, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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Beachgoers enjoy a summer day on the Mediterranean Sea beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, Aug. 7, 2021, left, and at right, Palestinians spend a day on the beach of Gaza City, Aug. 12, 2021.

AP Photos / Oded Balilty, left; Khalil Hamra

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Palestinians hold evening prayers on the beach of Gaza City, Aug 20, 2021, left, and at right, Israelis play under a light pole early in the evening on Tel Aviv’s beach, June 26, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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Two Palestinians, left, prepare their nets before fishing from the beach of Gaza City, July 4, 2021, and at right, two Israelis on Tel Aviv’s beach prepare to throw their fishing nets into the Mediterranean Sea, Aug. 31, 2020.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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Israeli youths rest after digging a hole in the sand on the Mediterranean Sea beachfront in Tel Aviv, June 18, 2021, left, and at right, Palestinian children play with water on a summer day at the beach of Gaza City, June 24, 2021.

AP Photos / Oded Balilty, left; Khalil Hamra

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An Israeli family, left, spends the day on a dog-friendly beach in Tel Aviv, July 10, 2021, and at right, Palestinians give a bath to a donkey on the beach of Gaza City, July 16, 2021.

AP Photos / Oded Balilty, left; Khalil Hamra

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Beachgoers enjoy a summer day on the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv, Israel, Aug. 14, 2021, left, and at right, Palestinians spend a day on the beachfront of Gaza City, Aug. 6, 2021.

AP Photos / Oded Balilty, left; Khalil Hamra

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Palestinian children play in the surf as the sun sets over the beach of Gaza City, June 4, 2021, left, and at right, Israeli youths play in the water as the sun sets over Tel Aviv’s beach, June 18, 2021.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

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Heart shapes, left, drawn in sand as the sun sets over the beach in Tel Aviv, Israel, June 12, 2021, and at right, a Palestinian man works on a sand sculpture of a heart on the beach of Gaza City, July 2, 2021.

AP Photos / Oded Balilty, left; Khalil Hamra

Hamra, like most Palestinians from Gaza, has never been to Tel Aviv. Balilty, like most Israelis, has not been to Gaza since Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers in 2005. While they’ve covered the conflict for decades, they met in person just once, at a photo exhibition in Europe in 2003. Communicating via Zoom, they talked about what they were seeing, made pictures, shared them and then set out to find similar ones from the their respective sides.

The pair, collaborating with global enterprise photo editor Enric Marti and Mideast photo director Dusan Vranic, aimed to capture a shared reality — the humanity of the people on both sides — as well as the differences.

“On the same day that I was standing with my feet in the water in Tel Aviv, Khalil was standing with his feet in the water in Gaza, and it was the same water,” says Balilty. “I was seeing Gaza through Khalil’s eyes.”

Combo mideast — Three Palestinians men, left, pose for a photograph while enjoying a summer day on the beach of Gaza City, July 30, 2021, and at right, three Israelis spend a day on the beach in Tel Aviv, Aug. 8, 2021, right.

AP Photos / Khalil Hamra, left; Oded Balilty

Hamra was particularly moved by a set of nearly identical pictures from Tel Aviv and Gaza, each showing three young men in their teens or early 20s reclining on the beach. Men that age in Israel are usually doing their compulsory military service. Men that age in Gaza often risk their lives in violent protests along the heavily guarded frontier. “But these guys, they were relaxing, they were swimming, they were having fun,” Hamra said.  ”At the end of the day there is life,” he added.

The powerful presentation, built by immersive storytelling producer Nat Castañeda, began with a Wes Anderson-esque combo of lifeguard towers — symmetrical and minimal — from each side, their condition revealing the difference in wealth. While building the presentation, Castañeda also created the moving, insightful video accompanying the piece, revealing more about the photographers and how they applied their craft.

For a strikingly unique, creative collaboration that brought, in Balilty’s words, “something positive” from a part of the world beset by conflict, Hamra and Balilty win this week’s Best of the Week award.

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Honorable Mentions:

Reporter’s flight gains attitude as pilot uses ‘coded crudity’

Colleen Long

was taking some much-deserved time off for a trip with her mom. But a good reporter and good timing came together for a very good story.

The ultimate news hook fell out of the sky, almost literally, as she flew from Houston to Albuquerque. The Southwest Airlines captain signed off his greeting to passengers with the “Let’s Go Brandon” phrase that is a right-wing euphemism for an expletive against President Joe Biden.

Coincidentally, Long — with contributions from fellow AP Washington reporters Aamer Madhani, Mary Clare Jalonick, Brian Slodysko and Will Weissert, and Jenna Fryer in Charlotte, North Carolina — had been working on an explainer about the origin of the phrase, which she coined a “coded crudity.” The pilot’s announcement was the perfect peg. She immediately sent an update to her story back to the Washington bureau and emailed the airline for comment. Then, as she departed the plane, she asked permission to knock on the cockpit door and speak with the pilot. She was firmly instructed by flight attendants to exit the plane.

Long’s story, laying out how the phrase began at a NASCAR race and had become part of insult culture, was the most-read on apnews.com with more than a million page views, and the Southwest angle featured prominently on Twitter, amplifying the story. The piece also generated follow-up stories by major news outlets, many citing Long's eye-witness account. Southwest initiated an investigation of the incident and denounced the pilot’s conduct.
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AP explores tense intersection of commerce, gangs, politics in Haiti

Rodrigo Abd and Alberto Arce

obtained rare access to members of Haiti’s wealthy elite — and to the violent gangs that threaten them — for a deep look at doing business in this failed state. Using contacts and determination and building trust, they explored how entrepreneurs continue to operate in an environment where more than 100 heavily armed gangs control access to the port, the fuel and the food supply chains. Kidnappings and killings are not uncommon in the impoverished capital, leaderless after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

During their reporting, the pair was threatened verbally by people who didn't want to be photographed and with weapons by gangsters who didn't want them there at all. After many attempts, Buenos-Aires based photographer Abd and freelance reporter Arce finally gained access to Barbecue, the leader of a coalition of gangs who presents himself as a populist fighting economic injustices, but who operates as an armed thug instilling fear in the people.

The piece was among AP’s top stories in reader engagement and earned kudos from Pulitzer Center funders: “(Abd and Arce) avoided all the easy frameworks ... and did a fantastic job depicting the abject inequity that is at the root of Haiti's social/economic collapse,” wrote Executive Editor Marina Walker.
https://aplink.news/wzd
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AP scoops White House press on Biden’s Communion in Rome

Nicole Winfield

relied on instinct, local knowledge and a deep awareness of the significance of President Joe Biden receiving Communion in Rome to report exclusively that he had slipped into the American Catholic church for a Saturday vigil Mass a day after meeting Pope Francis.

The story and an exclusive photo of the Bidens standing in the pew, shot by Winfiield with her smartphone, scooped even White House press officers, who didn’t know where the president had gone until AP’s pool reporter, Joshua Boak, informed them.

Reporters had been expecting Biden would attend Mass on Sunday at St. Peter’s Basilica. Biden regularly attends Mass and receives Communion, but some American Catholic bishops believe he should be denied the sacrament because of his support for abortion rights.

The AP story, picked up around the world, was made possible by close coordination with traveling AP reporters Zeke Miller and Boak, the Washington trip desk’s Darlene Superville and White House editor Nancy Benac. https://aplink.news/00j

AP’s latest on Louisiana State Police: A culture of impunity, nepotism, abuse

Jim Mustian and Jake Bleiberg

deconstructed how the Louisiana State Police scandal of beatings and cover-ups could have gone on for so long, digging deeper into the institutional thinking of the agency, its history and the background of key figures. They interviewed dozens of current and former troopers and uncovered thousands of pages of documents that described an entrenched culture of impunity, nepotism and in some cases outright racism.

This story, the latest in their investigative series stemming from the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, was built around a father who rose to second in command of the state agency despite being reprimanded for racist behavior, and his son who became one of the state police’s most violent troopers — with the brunt of his use of force directed at Black people.

Mustian and Bleiberg, federal law enforcement reporters, also had never-before-reported details of a 2019 cheating scandal in the state police academy that targeted the entire class for dismissal. In the end, nearly everyone in the class was allowed to graduate. And they conducted a revealing interview with the head of the state police in which he admitted he doesn’t know how many other cases like Ronald Greene’s could still be out there because “we’ve not looked at every video.”

The story, accompanied by video and photos by multiformat journalist Allen Breed, added to calls for a federal investigation, and Louisiana lawmakers created a special committee to dig into reports of excessive force. The piece also resonated with readers, scoring strong play online and ranking as one of the most-engaged stories of the week.
https://aplink.news/3zu
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Poignant story of daughter’s caregiving for oldest WWII veteran

Leah Willingham

chronicled the struggle to care for Lawrence Brooks, who at 112 is now the oldest American World War II veteran.

The story came about after Deep South correspondent Rebecca Santana received an email about a GoFundMe set up to help Brooks’ daughter care for him. Willingham’s sensitive and respectful reporting style helped establish a level of trust with Vanessa Brooks, who eventually felt comfortable telling her father’s story and she struggles to care for him. The result was a touching tribute to a daughter doing her best in cificult circumstances.

Willingham is a corps member in Jackson, Mississippi, for the AP/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Her story, accompanied by Kathleen Flynn’s intimate photos of Brooks and his daughter at home, received strong online play and was featured prominently in The Atlanta Journal Constitution print edition. https://aplink.news/tjr

Best of the Week — First Winner

Nov. 05, 2021

Distinctive AP photo project depicts Israelis, Palestinians sharing summer on distant shores

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