The Local Testimony 2024 photojournalism contest unveiled its winners at Tel Aviv’s Eretz Israel Museum on Tuesday. The exhibition features 170 powerful works, including 124 photographs and a number of videos, selected from more than 8,600 submissions by the museum’s curator.
The works will be on display through Feb. 15.
Chen G. Schimmel’s haunting image of a volunteer cleaning bloodstains in a home in Kibbutz Be’eri, where an elderly resident was murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, earned the “Photo of the Year” award.
“Series of the Year” went to Ziv Koren of Yediot Achronot for his documentation of the Golan family’s journey—from the moment that parents Ariel and Ellay shielded their baby, Yael, from a Hamas-thrown gas canister bomb in Kibbutz Kfar Aza—through their ongoing recovery at Sheba Medical Center.
Video honors went to Shelly Shalev for her hopeful portrayal of mental illness.
Photographer Amir Cohen of the Reuters wire service captured the emotional homecoming of freed hostage Aviva Siegel after 50 days in captivity. Her husband, Keith Siegel, remains in captivity, still being held by terrorists in Gaza.
Other winning shots include Haaretz photographer Moti Milrod’s documentation of Hamas terrorists in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City; Israel Hayom‘s Yehoshua Yosef’s coverage of religious protests at a Tel Aviv high school; and Michael Giladi’s dramatic capture of horses fleeing rocket-sparked fires on the Golan Heights.
The collection, representing work from 69 photographers, provides a powerful visual record of a year that reshaped Israeli society.
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
