Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda wins Emmy Award for Gaza report
Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda won an Emmy award on Wednesday for her 'I’m Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive' report, which documents her and her family's life under Israel's military onslaught in the territory.
The report - carried out in collaboration with the AJ+ outlet - won the prize for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story: Short Form during the news segment of the two-day 45th Annual News & Documentary Emmys, held by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS).
The Palestinian journalist's win comes days after the Television Academy rejected a campaign by pro-Israel personalities requesting that Owda’s nomination gets rescinded over bogus claims that she had ties to "a terrorist organisation".
Adam Sharp, the CEO of NATAS, said Owda's content submitted for award consideration "was consistent with competition rules and NATAS policies".
"Accordingly, NATAS has found no grounds, to date, upon which to overturn the editorial judgment of the independent journalists who reviewed the material," he added, as reported by Variety.
He added that NATAS has been "unable to corroborate" reports that the journalist has ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as claimed, "nor has it been able, to date, to surface any evidence of more contemporary or active involvement by Owda with the PFLP".
Her report, which also won a Peabody Award in May, chronicles her family's plight as they navigate war-ravaged Gaza, under brutal Israeli bombardment for almost a year.
AJ+'s senior executive producer, Jon Laurence, accepted the award on Owda's behalf.
"This award is testimony to the power of one woman, armed only with an iPhone, who survived almost a year of bombardment," Laurence said, before mentioning Israel's killing of over 100 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, including those working with the Al Jazeera network.
Owda rose to social media fame following the outbreak of Israel’s brutal war in the Gaza Strip, after she began documenting life under Israel's military onslaught, which has killed at least 41,495 Palestinians since October 7.
She currently boasts over four million followers on Instagram, as well as a sizeable following on X and TikTok.
The journalist, who is in her twenties, has shared semi-regular videos on social media since the start of the war, in which she usually begins with a variation of the phrase "I’m still alive", and has reported on numerous atrocities carried out by Israel, including the complete blockade on food and other necessities, the spread of diseases and the forced displacement of Palestinians.
The Palestinian journalist herself has been the victim of displacement several times, after her home in Rimal in Gaza City was bombed and destroyed by Israeli forces, including her filming equipment.
During the war in Gaza, Owda has witnessed and reported on the Al-Shifa ambulance strike in November, the Flour Massacre of February 2024, and displacement to Khan Younis.
Owda has been among the most prominent Palestinian journalists to garner praise for their reporting from Gaza, alongside Plestia AlAqad, Moataz Azaiza and Hind Khoudary.
The journalist, activist and filmmaker also uploaded videos to her social media accounts amid Israel’s aggression in Gaza in May 2021, in a bid to draw international attention to the events.
Also triumphant at the awards ceremony was UK broadcaster Channel 4, who won an International Emmy for News for 'Inside Gaza: Israel and Hamas at War'.
The award was dedicated to the journalists who have lost their lives covering the war, and to Palestinian filmmaker Yousef Hammash, whose work was described as "the backbone" of the documentary.
"It's to him we owe so much the credit to," the Channel 4 crew said.