Palestinian writer wins Pulitzer Prize

Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet and writer, received the Pulitzer Prize on Monday, May 5, 2025, for his articles published in The New Yorker about the physical and emotional toll of the massacre in Gaza. These articles provide profound accounts of the Palestinian experience during the war.

After receiving the award, Abu Toha wrote on social media: “I just won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary… Let this be a tale.”

His message appears to be a tribute to Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet killed in December 2023 during an Israeli regime attack on Gaza. The title of Alareer’s final poem was, “If I Must Die, Let It Be a Tale.”

Abu Toha, who is under pressure from pro-Zionist regime groups and at risk of deportation from the U.S., was detained by Israeli regime forces in Gaza in 2023. The 32-year-old writer, originally from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, was arrested at a checkpoint in 2023 while attempting to cross the border with his wife and three children.

In one of his articles, Abu Toha recounted being separated from his family, subjected to beatings and interrogation, and later released under pressure from international friends and supporters, allowing him to leave Gaza for Egypt and then the U.S.

In a New Yorker article, he wrote: “Over the past year, I’ve lost a tangible part of my memories—people, places, and things that help me remember.”

He also noted: “I’ve tried to create good memories. In Gaza, every destroyed house becomes a kind of album, not filled with photos but with real people, the dead pressed between its pages.”

Abu Toha documented the struggle of Gaza’s people to secure food and shelter, comparing daily life before and after the war. In a poignant and human tone, he wrote about his longing for his family: “I want to return to Gaza, sit around the kitchen table with my parents, and make tea for my sisters. I don’t need food; I just want to see them again.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer also referenced the destruction of the Jabalia refugee camp, where he grew up and studied, writing: “I looked at the images over and over, and the image of a cemetery that kept growing formed in my mind.”

Abu Toha’s writings were not limited to Palestine but also conveyed the experiences of Palestinians in exile, addressing the suspicion and humiliation they face even outside their homeland. He recounted a humiliating search at Boston’s airport, telling a security officer: “In November, Israeli forces abducted me and stripped me. Today, you’re reenacting that scene, separating me from my wife and children.”

In recent months, right-wing groups in the U.S., amid President Donald Trump’s campaign to suppress non-citizen critics of the Zionist regime, have called for Abu Toha’s deportation. The writer has canceled academic events in recent months due to security concerns.

In December 2024, he told Al Jazeera that his inability to help the people of Gaza has been devastating.

Abu Toha said: “Imagine you’re with your parents, siblings, and their children in a school shelter in Gaza. You can’t protect anyone. You can’t provide food, water, or medicine for them. But now you’re in America, a country that funds the genocide. So, it’s heartbreaking.”