Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary on Gaza War
Abu Toha’s powerful essays in The New Yorker offer a haunting personal narrative from war-torn Gaza, earning international acclaim and a Pulitzer Prize.
Watan-The Pulitzer Prize Board, which oversees the most prestigious awards in U.S. journalism and literature, has announced that Palestinian poet and writer Mosab Abu Toha has won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. The award honors a series of essays he published in The New Yorker, capturing the lived reality in Gaza during Israel’s devastating war on the territory.
According to the award statement, Abu Toha’s essays “document the physical and psychological destruction in Gaza, combining deep investigation with personal storytelling to deliver a deeply honest and painful Palestinian experience.” His reporting offered exceptional insight into a war that has now lasted more than a year and a half, The Guardian reported.
In his first reaction, Abu Toha wrote on X (formerly Twitter):“I just won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Let this be hope… let this be a story that is told.”
A Personal Account Amid Catastrophe
Abu Toha, 32, hails from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. In 2023, Israeli forces detained him at a checkpoint while he attempted to leave with his wife and three children. In one of his essays, he recounts being beaten and interrogated after being separated from his family—later released following pressure from friends and international supporters, enabling him to reach the United States.
In his pieces, he documented the struggle to secure food and shelter and contrasted everyday life before and after the war. Writing with tender humanity, he shared his longing for home:
“I miss Gaza. I miss sitting at the kitchen table with my mother and father. I miss making tea for my sisters. I don’t need food—I just want to look at them again.”
He also reflected on the devastation of Jabalia refugee camp, where he grew up and studied:“I looked at the photos over and over. In my mind, I saw a cemetery expanding.”
Endless Suffering and Exile
Abu Toha’s essays extend beyond Gaza to explore what it means to be a Palestinian in exile, touching on the suspicion and humiliation faced even abroad. He described a degrading search at Boston Airport, where he told a security officer:
“Israeli forces kidnapped me in November, stripped me of my clothes… And now you’re repeating the scene—separating me from my wife and children.”
Other Pulitzer Winners
The New Yorker also won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a podcast exposing the killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces. Photographer Moises Saman received the award for Distinguished Photography for his coverage of the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
In the arts category, writer Percival Everett won the Pulitzer for Fiction for his novel James, a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved character Jim. Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins won the Pulitzer for Drama for Purpose, which explores the disintegration of an African American family.
