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Portrait of injured Gazan boy named World Press Photo of the Year
The portrait, taken by Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for the New York Times, shows nine-year-old Mahmoud Ajjour, who lost both arms in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in March 2024, BBC reported.
Abu Elouf, who was evacuated from Gaza in late 2023, lives in the same apartment complex as Mahmoud in Doha, Qatar.
She has documented the lives of several wounded Gazans who made it out for treatment.
“This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly,” said World Press Photo executive director Joumana El Zein Khoury.
“It tells the story of one boy, but also of a wider war that will have an impact for generations.”
Abu Elouf had already won the prestigious Polk Award in 2023 for - among others in a collection - what has become one of the most recognisable and defining images of Israel’s war on Gaza, in which children sheltering at a school in Gaza look up in fear at the sky, hearing the bombs fall around them.
In 2024, Abu Elouf was the recipient of the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation for a series of 12 images commissioned by her primary employer, The New York Times, documenting the impact of war on Gaza’s women and children.
This year’s winners represent the best of the 59,320 photographs by 3,778 photographers from 141 countries.
The three categories were singles (solo photographs), stories (series of 4-10 photos) and long-term projects (24-30 photos on a single theme).