Palestinian poet wins Pulitzer Prize for commentary on sufferings of Palestinians amid genocide
Palestinian poet and writer Mosab Abu Toha has been awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for commentary on sufferings of Palestinians amid Israeli-inflicted genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Abu Toha, 32, won the prize for his moving essays published in The New Yorker, which detail the struggles of life in the war-torn Palestinian territory during Israel’s genocidal war on the territory that began in October 2023.
The Palestinian poet, who was born and raised in Gaza, announced the news on his X account, saying, “I have just won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Let it bring hope Let it be a tale.”
The Pulitzer committee praised his work for its powerful mix of personal experience and journalistic insight, which bring global attention to the human cost of the war.
In a statement on Monday, the Pulitzer board said that Abu Toha’s essays portrayed the “physical and emotional carnage in Gaza that combine deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of more than a year and a half of war with Israel.”
The Abu Toha’s firsthand accounts of the devastation- particularly his 2023 arrest by Israeli forces while trying to evacuate with his family – form the emotional and narrative backbone of his essays.
He recounts the trauma of being separated from his wife and children, beaten, and held in an Israeli detention center, while writing about the emotional and physical toll of war, the destruction of his home, and the deep suspicion he faced while abroad.
Abu Toha’s reflections shift between memories of a more peaceful past in Gaza and the harsh reality of daily survival. He used deeply personal stories to serve not only as testimony but also as a way to humanize a full-fledged war often seen in abstract political terms.
“I yearn to return to Gaza, sit at the kitchen table with my mother and father, and make tea for my sisters. I do not need to eat. I only want to look at them again,” he wrote in his essay titled “My Family’s Daily Struggle to Find Food in Gaza” published in The New Yorker in February last year.
In a later post on X on Monday, he thanked the Pulitzer board that selected him as the recipient of this year’s winner on commentary, and dedicated “this success to my family, friends, teachers, and students in Gaza.”
Furthermore, Abu Toha made blessings to his loved ones who were killed during the ongoing war while recalling their fate in a moving tone.
“Blessings to the 31 members of my family who were killed in one air strike in 2023. Blessings to the souls of my four first cousins, two of whom were killed with their husbands and their children. Blessings to the soul of my great aunt, Fatima, whose “corpse” remains under the rubble of her house since October 2024. Blessings to the graves of my grandparents who I will never find. Blessings to the souls of my students who got killed while looking for food or firewood. To the school where I studied and where I taught, to the library that I founded and to which I added one poetry book before 2023. Blessings to many more, many more,” he added.
He also prayed “for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and JUSTICE and PEACE!”
Beyond journalism, Abu Toha has made lasting contributions to Palestinian cultural life by founding the Edward Said Library – Gaza’s first English-language library – and publishing poetry collections that explore war, identity, and resilience.
