Why Pulitzer Prize winner Nathan Thrall wrote about a deadly West Bank school bus crash in 2012

Life for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is often stalked by violence – like last night’s deadly attack by settlers which we reported earlier.

When the American journalist Nathan Thrall decided to write about their experience, he wanted to expose what he called a moral catastrophe and expressed the hope that people would read it with open hearts and open minds.

His book ‘A Day in the Life of Abed Salama’ focused on a school bus crash in 2012, which killed 6 Palestinian children.

It helped to win him a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

But it was published in the very same week as the Hamas attacks on October 7th.

Hearts and minds have if anything closed further.

I sat down with him earlier and asked him first why he chose to write about this specific incident.