Latest news with #2025WorldPressPhotooftheYear
Al Jazeera
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
From Gaza to Vietnam, what is the value of a photo?
This month, Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf won the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year award for her image titled Mahmoud Ajjour, Aged Nine, taken last year for The New York Times. Ajjour had both of his arms blown off by an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip, where Israel's ongoing genocide has now killed at least 52,365 Palestinians since October 2023. In the award-winning photograph, the boy's head and armless torso are cast in partial shadow, his gaze nevertheless intense in its emptiness. Speaking recently to Al Jazeera, Ajjour recalled his reaction when his mother informed him that he had lost his arms: 'I started crying. I was very sad, and my mental state was very bad.' He was then forced to undergo surgery with no anaesthetic, an arrangement that has been par for the course in Gaza on account of Israel's criminal blockade of medical supplies and all other materials necessary for human survival. 'I couldn't bear the pain, I was screaming very loud. My voice filled the hallways.' According to Abu Elouf, the first tortured question the child posed to his mother was: 'How will I be able to hug you?' To be sure, Abu Elouf's portrait of Ajjour encapsulates the cataclysmic suffering Israel has inflicted – with the full backing of the United States – upon the children of the Gaza Strip. In mid-December 2023, just two months after the launch of the genocidal assault, the United Nations Children's Fund reported that some 1,000 children in Gaza had already lost one or both legs. Fast forward to the present moment and the UN's warning, in early April, that at least 100 children were being killed or injured on a daily basis in the besieged territory. They say a picture is worth a thousand words – but how many pictures are needed to depict genocide? Meanwhile, as the slaughter proceeds unabated in Gaza, today – April 30 – marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, another bloody historical episode in which the United States played an outsized role in mass killing. As it so happens, a nine-year-old child also became the face – and body – of that war: Kim Phuc, the victim of a US-supplied napalm attack outside the South Vietnamese village of Trang Bang in June 1972. Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer for The Associated Press, snapped the now-iconic image of Phuc as she ran naked down the road, her skin scorched and her face the picture of apocalyptic agony. The photo, which is officially titled The Terror of War but is often known instead as Napalm Girl, won the World Press Photo of the Year award in 1973. In an interview with CNN on the photograph's own 50th anniversary in 2022, Phuc reflected on the moment of the attack: '[S]uddenly, there was the fire everywhere, and my clothes were burned up by the fire … I still remember what I thought. I thought: 'Oh my goodness, I got burned, I will be ugly, and people will see me [in a] different way.'' This, obviously, is nothing any child or adult should have to endure – physically or psychologically – in any remotely civilised world. After spending 14 months in hospital, Phuc continued to suffer from extreme pain, suicidal thoughts and shame over having the photo of her naked and mutilated body exposed for all to see. And yet napalm was but one of many weapons in a US-backed toolkit designed to make the planet safe for capitalism by incinerating and otherwise disfiguring human bodies. To this day, Vietnamese are maimed and killed by the unexploded leftovers of millions of tonnes of ordnance the US dropped on the country during the war. The lethal defoliant Agent Orange, which the US used to saturate swaths of Vietnam, also remains responsible for all manner of incapacitating birth defects and death half a century after the war's end. In her 1977 book On Photography, the late American writer Susan Sontag considered the function of images like Ut's: 'Photographs like the one that made the front page of most newspapers in the world in 1972 – a naked South Vietnamese child just sprayed by American napalm, running down a highway toward the camera, her arms open, screaming with pain – probably did more to increase the public revulsion against the war than a hundred hours of televised barbarities.' Public revulsion aside, of course, US-backed barbarities in Vietnam went on for three more years after Ut published his photo. Now, the fact that pretty much every image out of the Gaza Strip could be labelled The Terror of War simply confirms that barbarity is still a brisk business. And in the current era of social media, in which both still images and videos are reduced to rapid-fire visuals for momentary consumption, the desensitising effect on the public cannot be understated – even when we're talking about nine-year-old children with both of their arms blown off. In an Instagram post on April 18, Abu Elouf wrote: 'I always have, and still do, wish to capture the photo that would stop this war – that would stop the killing, the death, the starvation.' She went on to plead: 'But if our photos can't stop all this tragedy and horror, then what is the value of a photo? What is the image you're waiting to see in order to understand what's happening inside Gaza?' And on that bleak note, I might ask a similar question: What, in the end, is the value of an opinion article? The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Al Jazeera
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
LIVE: Israel kills 64 in Gaza as homes, tent camps, barbershop bombed
Medical sources tell Al Jazeera that at least 64 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since dawn on UN's World Food Programme issues an urgent warning that 'Gaza needs food now' as hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza says people in the war-torn territory are 'psychologically broken' amid unrelenting Israeli bombing and having no food for their children due to the Israeli blockade on aid Health Ministry says at least 51,065 Palestinians have been confirmed dead and 116,505 wounded in Israel's war on Gaza since it began 18 months Gaza Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive. Update: Date: 3m ago (00:07 GMT) Title: WATCH: Image of Gaza air strike survivor wins 2025 World Press Photo of the Year Content: A poignant image of a nine-year-old amputee from Gaza is the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year. Mahmoud Ajjour lost both of his arms in an Israeli air strike. 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. Watch below: This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window. This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Update: Date: 6m ago (00:04 GMT) Title: A recap of recent developments Content: Update: Date: 9m ago (00:00 GMT) Title: Welcome to our live coverage Content: Hello, and thank you for joining our live coverage of Israel's war on Gaza as well as Israeli attacks on the occupied West Bank and the wider region. Follow this page for around-the-clock updates on the latest developments. You can find all our updates from Friday, April 18, here.
Al Jazeera
18-04-2025
- General
- Al Jazeera
Image of Gaza airstrike survivor wins 2025 World Press Photo of the Year
NewsFeed 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.
Al Jazeera
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Jazeera
Photos: Palestinian photographer wins world's top photo prize
The 2025 World Press Photo of the Year has been awarded to Samar Abu Elouf, a Doha-based Palestinian photographer, for her poignant image of Mahmoud Ajjour, a young boy severely injured while fleeing an Israeli attack in Gaza. Captured for The New York Times newspaper, the photograph powerfully conveys Mahmoud's suffering and resilience after an explosion in March last year left one of his arms severed and the other mutilated. Since her evacuation from Gaza in December 2023, Abu Elouf has been documenting the experiences of individuals like Mahmoud, who sought medical treatment abroad. Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo, an Amsterdam-based organisation, described the image as 'quiet' yet deeply impactful, capturing the intimate suffering of one child while also speaking to the wider repercussions of global conflict. The winner and two finalists were announced on Thursday, during the press opening of the World Press Photo Exhibition in Amsterdam. The exhibition will travel to more than 60 locations worldwide, showcasing some of the year's most compelling and visually striking stories. For 70 years, the World Press Photo Contest has honoured the best in photojournalism. This year's contest received at least 59,000 submissions from photographers in 141 countries, featuring powerful stories of struggle, defiance, warmth and courage. Here are some of the top images of this year:
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
World Press Photo announces 2025 winners: See striking images
The winners of the 2025 World Press Photo Contest have been announced, and the winning selection showcases some of the world's best photojournalism and documentary photography. Forty-two winners, nine more than last year's total of 33, were chosen from more than 59,000 entries received from 3,778 photographers from across 141 countries, World Press Photo said in a news release. Winners from the regions of Africa; Asia Pacific and Oceania; Europe; North and Central America; South America; and West, Central and South Asia were awarded across three categories: "Singles" (single frame photographs), "Stories" (between 4 and 10 single frame photographs), and "Long-term Projects" (between 4 and 10 single frame photographs). The singles and stories categories had three winners apiece, and one winner was named in the long-term project category. Selection was first done by six regional juries, and the final winners were then chosen by an independent global jury consisting of the regional jury chairs plus the global jury chair, the organization said. "Gathered from across 2024's fast changing political and media landscape, the photos invite viewers to step outside the news cycle and look more deeply at both prominent and less seen stories from across the world as well as look again at familiar events," the organization said. "These works show the power of authentic photojournalism and documentary photography - offering space for reflection in times of urgency through visual excellence and dedication to accuracy." Key themes from this year's winning selection range from politics, gender and migration, to conflict and the climate crisis. World Press Photo, now in its 70th year, said it is increasing the total number of winners from a total of 33 in 2024 to 42 this year. In the past three years, there has been one winning single and one winning story per region. However, from this year onwards, there will be three winners in each of these categories per region. "The world is not the same as it was in 1955 when World Press Photo was founded," Executive Director World Press Photo, Joumana El Zein Khoury said in a statement. "We live in a time when it is easier than ever to look away, to scroll past, to disengage. But these images do not let us do that." Khoury added the winning images "cut through the noise, forcing us to acknowledge what is unfolding, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it makes us question the world we live in - and our own role within it." The winning photographs and the stories behind them will be showcased in an exhibition that will travel across 60 locations around the world over this year, including London, Rome, Berlin, Mexico City, Montreal and Jakarta with "millions more" seeing the "winning stories online," the organization said. World Press Photo, on April 17, will also announce the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year winner and two finalists at the press opening of the Flagship World Press Photo Exhibition 2025 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. All winning photographers are eligible for the Photo of the Year award. Global jury chair Lucy Conticello said jury members "were looking for pictures that people can start conversations around." "We made our choices with an eye on the final mix," Conticello said. "As much as the World Press Photo Contest award is an immense recognition for photographers, often working under difficult circumstances, it is also a recap of the world's major events, however incomplete." Founded in the Netherlands in 1955, World Press Photo is a nonprofit organization that "champions the power of photojournalism and documentary photography to deepen understanding, promote dialog, and inspire action."Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@ and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Winners of the 2025 World Press Photo Contest: See striking images
