Image of Gaza airstrike survivor wins 2025 World Press Photo of the Year
A poignant image of a nine-year-old amputee from Gaza is the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year. Mahmoud Ajjour lost both arms in an Israeli airstrike. His portrait was taken by Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times. Ajjour spoke with Al Jazeera about rebuilding his life and his dream of returning home.
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Al Jazeera
5 days ago
- Al Jazeera
My phone succumbed to its wounds in Gaza
Khan Younes, Gaza – A dear companion doesn't have to be human to be deeply missed when lost. Sometimes, it's a phone – a loyal witness to your joys and sorrows, your moments of sweetness and darkest chapters of pain. In the harshness of life in the world's largest open-air prison, it becomes more than a device. It's an extension of yourself; your portal to the world, your way of reaching loved ones scattered across the prison or outside it. Through its lens, you sometimes capture joy and beauty, but more often, it only captures falling rockets or the rubble of houses covering the corpses of their residents. But what are you left with when that loyal companion is disappeared by the genocidal chaos? My phone succumbed to its injuries My phone succumbed to its injuries. I can't believe I'm describing it this way, with the same phrase I use when reporting on thousands of my people killed after being denied urgent medical treatment, punished simply for surviving Israeli bombs. But in its own way, my phone endured its share of this prolonged Israeli cruelty, the technocide of power-starvation, corrosion by dust and sand, suffocation in overheated tents, and the constant torment of poor connection. It tried to hold on, but everyone has a limit of endurance. It fell the day we left our damaged home for our 14th displacement amid chaotic stampeding crowds. Somehow it survived the heavy blow, but it only lasted 70 days after its screen cracked, its body blistered, until its wounds spread too far to bear. And then it went dark for good. Oddly, I felt consoled. Not because it wasn't painful, but because I wasn't alone. I've seen the same happen to others: Friends, relatives watching their phones slowly perish, just like the people they loved. Strangely, we find comfort in these small shared losses. Our loved ones have perished, and our wellbeing is shattering, and yet we expect our phones not to. The real miracle is that they lasted this long at all. Smartphone addiction is thrown around as a buzzword. But in Gaza, if you're lucky enough to still have one, it's not an addiction, it is survival. It's an escape. A small, glowing portal you cling to. It helps you slip briefly into the past, scrolling through memories, staring at the faces of loved ones who are now names on graves or names you still whisper in hope. Your phone's emotionless memory still holds their beautiful smiles. It connects you to people you can't reach, voices you can't otherwise hear. It dulls the pain not by healing it, but by distracting you. Like a hunger you can't satisfy, so you scroll through reels of mouth-watering food, mocking your emptiness. You watch strangers at family dinners while your table is buried under rubble. You wonder, how dare they post such scenes, knowing that children are being starved to death a few kilometres away? And yet you keep scrolling, because for a moment, it's a brutal soothing sedative. 'Are you alive?' When you're someone who reports daily on the ongoing genocide to the world, finding a new companion becomes an inevitable must. Yet the quest is disastrous in Gaza. You might think it's impossible to find one here, where life has become ruins and even bread is scarce, but surprisingly, there are plenty of options, even the latest high-end brands that somehow found their way through the blockade. But this is Gaza, where a bag of flour costs $700, so the cost of a phone is on a whole different level. Even the lowest-quality phones in makeshift shops sell for more than what it costs to build the shop itself, inflated by genocidal conditions. And it doesn't stop there. You must pay in cash, in a place where almost nothing is free except the air you breathe. An iPhone might cost $1,000 elsewhere, but here it costs $4,200. So you turn to cheaper options, hoping for something more affordable, but the calculations remain the same. But that's not me – because either way, by spending such unthinkable amounts, you're solidifying the very reality your captors are trying to impose, and doing it with your own money. You realise that you're feeding into their design. We're already draining whatever's left in our pockets just for flour during this genocidal siege, and we don't know how long it will last. So you cling to what you have, to avoid paying your soul at a GHF centre for deadly 'aid' you'll never get. For a while now, I've felt paralysed, a helplessness especially familiar during June's two-week total communication blackout imposed by Israel – during which my phone finally died in total silence. When the captor cuts yet another lifeline, it's more than just being unable to check on loved ones. It means ambulances can't be called. It means a wounded person might die in the dark, unheard. It's like someone is out there, cruelly deciding when you're allowed to contact the world or to be contacted, to receive the now-typical: 'Are you alive?' There's a cruel irony in Israel issuing expulsion orders online even as it cuts off the networks people in Gaza need to receive them. You only find out when you see thousands flooding the streets, the earth trembling beneath their feet from Israeli attacks. The hand that controls your digital lifeline is the same one that's been blockading and colonising your land for years. And you realise, with certainty, that if they could block the very air you breathe, they would not hesitate. So, you rise There are still moments when, instinctively, I reach out to call someone or check something – but my hand touches nothing. My companion is gone. I remain phoneless, helpless under blockade, both digital and physical. And then, you start to compare your shackles to the abundance your captors enjoy, genociding you with full access to every technological privilege, every luxury. You, on the other hand, are being hunted down with the world's most advanced weapons, under the watchful eye and silent complicity of the tech giants whose tools are backing your erasure. While they use satellites and precision-guided missiles, you just want to tell the world you're still here. How vital your lost companion was. It wasn't just a phone. It was your sword, your shield, your witness. And in the face of this tyranny, surrendering is something you cannot afford. So, you rise. You whisper, 'Rest in power, my companion,' because we refuse to be slaughtered in silence. We will keep telling our truth, even if all we have left is a scrap of paper and a drop of ink.
Al Jazeera
02-08-2025
- Al Jazeera
Dangerous Mekong River pollution blamed on lawless mining in Myanmar
Houayxay, Laos – Fishing went well today for Khon, a Laotian fisherman, who lives in a floating house built from plastic drums, scrap metal and wood on the Mekong River. 'I caught two catfish,' the 52-year-old tells Al Jazeera proudly, lifting his catch for inspection. Khon's simple houseboat contains all he needs to live on this mighty river: A few metal pots, a fire to cook food on and to keep warm by at night, as well as some nets and a few clothes. list of 4 items list 1 of 4 list 2 of 4 list 3 of 4 list 4 of 4 end of list Advertisement What Khon does not always have is fish. 'There are days when I catch nothing. It's frustrating,' he said. 'The water levels change all the time because of the dams. And now they say the river is polluted, too. Up there in Myanmar, they dig in the mountains. Mines, or something like that. And all that toxic stuff ends up here,' he adds. Advertisement Khon lives in Laos's northwestern Bokeo province on one of the most scenic stretches of the Mekong River as it meanders through the heart of the Golden Triangle – the borderland shared by Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. This remote region has long been infamous for drug production and trafficking. Now it is caught up in the global scramble for gold and rare earth minerals, crucial for the production of new technologies and used in everything from smartphones to electric cars. A fisherman along the Mekong River in Bokeo province, Laos [Al Jazeera/Fabio Polese] Over the past year, rivers in this region, such as the Ruak, Sai and Kok – all tributaries of the Mekong – have shown abnormal levels of arsenic, lead, nickel and manganese, according to Thailand's Pollution Control Department. Arsenic, in particular, has exceeded World Health Organization safety limits, prompting health warnings for riverside communities. These tributaries feed directly into the Mekong and contamination has spread to parts of the river's mainstream. The effects have been observed in Laos, prompting the Mekong River Commission to declare the situation 'moderately serious'. Advertisement 'Recent official water quality testing clearly indicates that the Mekong River on the Thai-Lao border is contaminated with arsenic,' Pianporn Deetes, Southeast Asia campaigns director for the advocacy group International Rivers, told Al Jazeera. 'This is alarming and just the first chapter of the crisis, if the mining continues,' Pianporn said. 'Fishermen have recently caught diseased, young catfish. This is a matter of regional public health, and it needs urgent action from governments,' she added. Advertisement The source of the heavy metals contamination is believed to be upriver in Myanmar's Shan State, where dozens of unregulated mines have sprung up as the search for rare earth minerals intensifies globally. Laotian fisherman Khon, 52, throws a net from the bank of the Mekong River without catching anything [Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera] Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington and an expert on Southeast Asia, said at least a dozen, and possibly as many as 20, mines focused on gold and rare earth extraction have been established in southern Shan State over the past year alone. Myanmar is now four years into a civil war and lawlessness reigns in the border area, which is held by two powerful ethnic armed groups: the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and the United Wa State Army (UWSA). Advertisement Myanmar's military government has 'no real control', Abuza said, apart from holding Tachileik town, the region's main border crossing between Thailand and Myanmar. Neither the RCSS nor the UWSA are 'fighting the junta', he said, explaining how both are busy enriching themselves from the chaos in the region and the rush to open mines. 'In this vacuum, mining has exploded – likely with Chinese traders involved. The military in Naypyidaw can't issue permits or enforce environmental rules, but they still take their share of the profits,' Abuza said. Advertisement Pollution from mining is not the Mekong River's only ailment. For years, the health of the river has been degraded by a growing chain of hydropower dams that have drastically altered its natural rhythm and ecology. In the Mekong's upper reaches, inside China, almost a dozen huge hydropower dams have been built, including the Xiaowan and Nuozhadu dams, which are said to be capable of holding back a huge amount of the river's flow. Advertisement Further downstream, Laos has staked its economic future on hydropower. According to the Mekong Dam Monitor, which is hosted by the Stimson Centre think tank in Washington, DC, at least 75 dams are now operational on the Mekong's tributaries, and two in Laos – Xayaburi and Don Sahong – are directly on the mainstream river. As a rule, hydropower is a cleaner alternative to coal. Advertisement But the rush to dam the Mekong is driving another type of environmental crisis. According to WWF and the Mekong River Commission, the Mekong River basin once supported about 60 million people and provided up to 25 percent of the world's freshwater fish catch. Today, one in five fish species in the Mekong is at risk of extinction, and the river's sediment and nutrient flows have been severely reduced, as documented in a 2023–2024 Mekong Dam Monitor report and research by International Rivers. Advertisement 'The alarming decline in fish populations in the Mekong is an urgent wake-up call for action to save these extraordinary – and extraordinarily important – species, which underpin not only the region's societies and economies but also the health of the Mekong's freshwater ecosystems,' the WWF's Asia Pacific Regional Director Lan Mercado said at the launch of a 2024 report titled The Mekong's Forgotten Fishes. In Houayxay, the capital of Bokeo province, the markets appeared mostly absent of fish during a recent visit. At Kad Wang View, the town's main market, the fish stalls were nearly deserted. Advertisement 'Maybe this afternoon, or maybe tomorrow,' said Mali, a vendor in her 60s. In front of her, Mali had arranged her small stock of fish in a circle, perhaps hoping to make the display look fuller for potential customers. At another market, Sydonemy, just outside Houayxay town, the story was the same. The fish stalls were bare. 'Sometimes the fish come, sometimes they don't. We just wait,' another vendor said. Advertisement 'There used to be giant fish here,' recalled Vilasai, 53, who comes from a fishing family but now works as a taxi driver. 'Now the river gives us little. Even the water for irrigation – people are scared to use it. No one knows if it's still clean,' he told Al Jazeera, referring to the pollution from Myanmar's mines. A fish seller at Kad Wang View, the main market in Houayxay, where stalls were nearly empty during a recent visit [Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera] Ian G Baird, professor of geography and Southeast Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said upstream dams – especially those in China – have had serious downstream effects in northern Thailand and Laos. Advertisement 'The ecosystem and the lives that depend on the river evolved to adapt to specific hydrological conditions,' Baird told Al Jazeera. 'But since the dams were built, those conditions have changed dramatically. There are now rapid water level fluctuations in the dry season, which used to be rare, and this has negative impacts on both the river and the people,' he said. Another major effect is the reversal of the river's natural cycle. Advertisement 'Now there is more water in the dry season and less during the rainy season. That reduces flooding and the beneficial ecological effects of the annual flood pulse,' Baird explained. 'The dams hold water during the rainy season and release it in the dry season to maximise energy output and profits. But that also kills seasonally flooded forests and disrupts the river's ecological function,' he said. Bun Chan, 45, lives with his wife Nanna Kuhd, 40, on a floating house near Houayxay. He fishes while his wife sells whatever he catches at the local market. On a recent morning, he cast his net again and again – but for nothing. 'Looks like I won't catch anything today,' Bun Chan told Al Jazeera as he pulled up his empty net. 'The other day I caught a few, but we didn't sell them. We're keeping them in cages in the water, so at least we have something to eat if I don't catch more,' he said. Fisherman Hom Phan steers his boat on the Mekong River [Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera] Hom Phan has been a fisherman on the Mekong his entire life. He steers his wooden boat across the river, following a route he knows by instinct. In some parts of the river, the current is strong enough now to drag everything under, the 67-year-old says. All around him, the silence is broken only by the chug of his small outboard engine and the calls of distant birds. 'The river used to be predictable. Now we don't know when it will rise or fall,' Hom Phan said. 'Fish can't find their spawning grounds. They're disappearing. And we might too, if nothing changes,' he told Al Jazeera. Evening approaches in Houayxay, and Khon, the fisherman, rolls up his nets and prepares dinner in his floating home. As he waits for the fire to catch to cook a meal, he quietly contemplates the great river he lives on. Despite the dams in China, the pollution from mines in neighbouring Myanmar, and the increasing difficulty in landing the catch he relies on to survive, Khon was outwardly serene as he considered his next day of fishing. With his eyes fixed on the waters that flowed deeply beneath his home, he said with a smile: 'We try again tomorrow.' Source: Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
01-08-2025
- Al Jazeera
These Palestinians survived a visit to the GHF's deadly aid sites
These Palestinians survived a visit to the GHF's deadly aid sites NewsFeed Palestinians take Al Jazeera on journey showing how hard it is to get food at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's distribution hubs. Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people at GHF sites since May. Observers say Israel's aid management is cruel and farcical. Video Duration 00 minutes 54 seconds 00:54 Video Duration 00 minutes 45 seconds 00:45 Video Duration 01 minutes 53 seconds 01:53 Video Duration 00 minutes 17 seconds 00:17 Video Duration 00 minutes 54 seconds 00:54 Video Duration 01 minutes 22 seconds 01:22 Video Duration 02 minutes 54 seconds 02:54
