The Washington Post spent a year reporting on Israeli tactics in Gaza and their human toll, advancing new investigative methods and delivering a series of accountability-driven stories that challenge the Israeli government’s public narrative of the war.
The Gaza war has been one of the most deadly and destructive in modern times. The Israeli military, in its campaign to eliminate Hamas after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, has obliterated entire cities, displaced nearly 2 million people and carved out military corridors where homes and farms once stood. It has killed thousands of women and children, hundreds of aid workers and at least 138 Palestinian journalists — while denying access to international media. Each story in this package was prompted by initial news reports that seemed to tell only part of the story. These accounts, built on weeks and months of reporting, go deeper to illustrate the human consequences of Israel’s strategic decisions and explain with clarity and precision what made the war so destructive.
This collection stands apart as the result of the depth, timeliness and rigor of its reporting, explaining massive military developments in real time and scrutinizing some of the most controversial episodes of the war.
Our May story on the strategic Netzarim Corridor was the first to visualize how thoroughly Israel had transformed the geography of Gaza, demolishing buildings and bulldozing farmland to create a military zone that cut the Strip in half. In December, guided by our earlier findings, we were the first to quantify the destruction of Gaza’s far north and to reveal how Israel was using displacements and demolitions to create a new military axis. While the death of 6-year-old Hind Rajab attracted global media attention, our months-long investigation stands as the definitive account of her final hours. Our illustrated project on the long road to reconstruction was the most immersive and comprehensive treatment of Gaza’s physical destruction. Many other outlets published pieces about IDF soldier videos from Gaza, but our approach was unique and its findings more far-reaching — pairing our video verification work with soldier interviews to show how, in some units, acts of indiscriminate violence became justified by the logic of revenge after the horrors of Oct. 7. And our investigation of the drone strike on Al Jazeera journalists was one of the most in-depth accountability pieces on the killings of media workers in Gaza.
Piece that talks about what happens next … including that element sets it apart
