JERUSALEM, Israel – The Pulitzer committee, which awards a major prize for journalism, has drawn heavy criticism from media watchdogs and a former Israeli hostage for giving the Pulitzer Prize on Tuesday to Palestinian journalist Mosab Abu Toha, who justified the Hamas kidnappings of October 7th, 2023.
Writing about former hostage Emily Damari, a British-Israeli citizen who was held by Hamas for 471 days, Abu Toha, who received his award for writing in The New Yorker, wrote earlier this year on Facebook, “How on earth is this girl called a hostage? (And this is the case of most ‘hostages’). This is Emily Damari, a 28 UK-Israeli soldier that Hamas detained on 10/7 … So this girl is called a ‘hostage’? This soldier, who was close to the border with a city that she and her country have been occupying, is called a ‘hostage’?”
Damari responded to the Abu Toha and Pulitzer Prize Board with an open letter on X, reading, in part:
“My name is Emily Damari. I was held hostage in Gaza for over 500 days. On the morning of October 7, I was at home in my small studio apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas terrorists burst in, shot me and dragged me across the border into Gaza. I was one of 251 men, women, children, and elderly people kidnapped that day from their beds, their homes, and a music festival. For almost 500 days I lived in terror. I was starved, abused, and treated like I was less than human. I watched friends suffer. I watched hope dim. And even now, after returning home, I carry that darkness with me – because my best friends, Gali and Ziv Berman, are still being held in the Hamas terror tunnels. So imagine my shock and pain when I saw that you awarded a Pulitzer Prize to Mosab Abu Toha.”
Damari continued, “This is a man who, in January, questioned the very fact of my captivity. He posted about me on Facebook and asked, “How on earth is this girl called a hostage?” He has denied the murder of the Bibas family. He has questioned whether Agam Berger was truly a hostage. These are not word games – they are outright denials of documented atrocities. You claim to honor journalism that upholds truth, democracy, and human dignity. And yet you have chosen to elevate a voice that denies truth, erases victims, and desecrates the memory of the murdered. Do you not see what this means? Mosab Abu Toha is not a courageous writer. He is the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier. And by honoring him, you have joined him in the shadows of denial.”
Media watchdog HonestReporting called on the Pulitzer Committee to rescind the award to Abu Toha, writing, “It seems that both the magazine and the Pulitzer committee failed to check Abu Toha’s virulent social media posts against Israeli hostages whom Hamas brutally abducted on October 7, 2023.”
HonestReporting described the award as “a blemish on the Pulitzer Prize.”
