"In Gaza, you don't become a journalist because you want to, but because you have to."
Interview: The Journalists' Association of Agence France-Presse, one of the few media outlets with staff in the Palestinian enclave, warned on July 21 about the dire living and working conditions of its reporters there. A Gazan journalist, evacuated to France, also spoke to "Nouvel Obs" about the extreme conditions in which she had to work for a year and a half.
Interview by Esther Boulekouane
Palestinian journalist Rita Baroud delivers a speech at the Paris Peace Forum on June 13, 2025. THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP
Rita Baroud is a young woman from Gaza, originally from the north of the Palestinian enclave. For a year and a half, she donned her press vest and documented Israel's war in the Gaza Strip . In June, she and her family were evacuated. She now continues to bear witness and document from France.
She was only 20 years old when the conflict erupted on October 7, 2023, following the massacre perpetrated by Hamas in the south of the Jewish state. The young woman was studying French at the time and hoped to continue her studies abroad. Her family home, located in Rimal, in the northern coastal territory, was destroyed three days after the start of the war by a bombing, leaving her and her loved ones destitute. From displacement to displacement…
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