clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile
Everyone deserves an explanation We’re aiming to add 47 annual contributors today to help keep Vox free for everyone. Will you become one of them?
An Israeli policeman points his gun toward Palestinian demonstrators and photographers during clashes in East Jerusalem
An Israeli policeman points his gun toward Palestinian demonstrators and photographers during clashes in East Jerusalem
Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

The powerfully human Israel-Palestine photography of Ahmad Gharabli

By Max Fisher Updated

If you've read about the Israel-Palestine conflict at all in the last few years, chances are your eyes have stopped at least once over the photography of Gharabli Ahmad. The East Jerusalem-based Agence France-Presse photojournalist has developed a distinctive style during his years of documenting life in Israel and the Palestinian territories, much of his work conveying the conflict from the Palestinian perspective. It's a subject that normally invites clichés, but which he gives new life by finding someone standing out in a crowd, a meaningful glance at the camera, a moment of unscripted candor amid the usual routines of the conflict. Collected here are 25 of his photos from the last few years, much of it from Jerusalem. They show the conflict, normal daily life, and the vast grey area in between. In keeping with the nature of life on Israel-Palestine's front lines, the conflict and non-conflict photos are intermixed.

A young Palestinian shepherd leads his flock near the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim (background) on September 19, 2011 in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinian men illegally cross into Israel during a sand storm on December 11, 2010 in the West Bank, north of the city of Hebron. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
An Israeli army bulldozer destroys a Palestinian house in the Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina in occupied east Jerusalem on July 13, 2010. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
A Palestinian child throws stones towards Israeli border guards during clashes on December 1, 2011 in the east Jerusalem refugee camp of Shuafat. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
The Palestinian Shuafat refugee camp is surrounded by the Israeli separation barrier in east Jerusalem on January 19, 2012. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinians pray in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound on February 14, 2014. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli border police patrol the Arab quarter of Jerusalem's Old City on July 23, 2010. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinian mourners carry the body of Samir Serhan, who had been shot by Israeli settlement security guards, during his funeral precession at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on September 22, 2010 in Jerusalem's Old City. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli border guards fire tear gas grenades at Palestinian stone-throwers during clashes in the Shuwfat refugee camp, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, on January 19, 2011. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
A Palestinian woman prays inside Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock mosque at the Al-Aqsa compound, Islam's third holiest site, on April 14, 2012. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
The land: Sheep walk at the Judean desert overlooking the Jordan Valley on January 8, 2014. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Jewish ultra-Orthodox children watch a large forest fire outside of Jerusalem on July 17, 2011. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
A Palestinian man demolishes his home to carry out an Israeli court order which ruled that the house was built without a municipality permit in Shuafat. Many Palestinians end up demolishing their homes themselves to avoid the high cost of paying for Israeli government bulldozers, or being sent to prison for not being able to pay. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
A Palestinian man poses for a photo with his python in the Spanish Gardens, in the West Bank town of Jericho, on October 13, 2013. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli soldiers, near graffiti of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat, keep their position during clashes with Palestinian stone throwers at the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem on September 21, 2011. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
A Palestinian man peers from behind Israeli security forces standing guard at an alleyway leading to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque compound on February 25, 2014. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighbourhood gather for prayer to protest an Israeli gay pride march in the city on July 29, 2010. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli soldiers and an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man pray in front of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City, on October 22, 2012. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli riot police stand guard behind Palestinian Muslim worshipers attending the Friday prayer outside the Old City of Jerusalem on May 30, 2014. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinians perform in Jerusalem's Old City during celebrations on August 12, 2010. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinian civilians and patrolling Israeli riot policemen bump into one another in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan on April 15, 2011, following earlier clashes between police and stone throwers. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man gestures during clashes with Israeli forces following demonstrations against the arrest of an Ultra-Orthodox woman accused of child abuse in Jerusalem on July 16, 2009. The protesters also rallied against the opening of a parking lot on Saturdays, the Jewish holy day of rest. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinians protest following Friday prayers in east Jerusalem's Palestinian neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud on September 27, 2013. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated Friday in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem to mark the anniversary of an uprising against Israel's West Bank occupation. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinian Muslims pray outside of the Old City of Jerusalem as Israeli police block them from praying in the city's Al-Aqsa mosque after a decision was made to limit access for Muslim men to the compound to prevent possible clashes on March 14, 2014. | Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

We have a request

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

1. Advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan.

2. We’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — we believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

It’s important that we have several ways we make money, and that’s why we ask readers for help keeping Vox free. Our goal today is for 47 Vox readers to pledge an annual financial gift to Vox to help us keep our work free for everyone. Will you become one of them?

Yes, I'll give $120/year

In This Stream

The crisis in Israel-Palestine

View all 63 stories
Explainers

Ramadan: 9 questions about the Muslim holy month you were too embarrassed to ask

Technology

Is TikTok too big to ban?

World Politics

The Wagner Group, Russia’s maybe-private army in Ukraine, explained

View all stories in World Politics