By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A striking portrait of a young Palestinian boy, Mahmoud Ajjour, who lost both arms in an air strike by Israeli forces in Gaza City, has been named Press Photo of the Year.
Photographer Samar Abu Elouf, who is also from Gaza, met nine-year-old Ajjour three months after an explosion severed one of his arms and mutilated the other.
Ajjour and his family were evacuated to Doha, Qatar, for medical treatment, the same city where Abu Elouf is based.
“One of the most difficult things Mahmoud’s mother explained to me was how, when Mahmoud first came to the realisation that his arms were amputated, the first sentence he said to her was, ‘How will I be able to hug you?’” Abu Elouf wrote in her accompanying notes on the image, which was taken for and published in The New York Times.
The photo is a long-term reminder of the scars left behind by the war in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands and led to widespread destruction and displacement of residents.
Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza was triggered by the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas militants on Israeli territory.
According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, about half of those killed in the onslaught are women and children.
“This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly. It tells the story of one boy, but also of a wider war that will have an impact for generations,” the Executive Director of World Press Photo, Joumana El Zein Khoury, said in a press statement.
The jury observed three central themes — conflict, migration, and climate change — in the entries this year.
According to Lucy Conticello, Director of Photography for Le Monde’s M magazine and one of the judges, the jury observed three central themes, including conflict, migration, and climate change, in this year’s entries.
“Another way of seeing them is as stories of resilience, family, and community,” Conticello said in a press statement.
The contrast in the winning photo — light and dark, beauty and pain — captured the attention of the judges, she added.
The winning photo was selected from nearly 60,000 entries submitted by 3,778 photographers across more than 140 countries.
Two other works were selected as runners-up: an otherworldly image of Chinese migrants warming themselves by a fire after crossing the US–Mexico border, and a haunting image of a young man walking to his village, once accessible by boat, along a desert-like riverbed in the Amazon.
The winning images are currently on display in a travelling exhibition, which opened on 18 April in Amsterdam at De Nieuwe Kerk, followed by shows around the globe, including in London, Jakarta, Sydney, and Mexico City.
