Before his tenth birthday, Mahmoud Ajjour lost both of his arms after an Israeli explosion tore off one of his hands and caused severe injuries to the other. Ajjour was fleeing his home in Gaza with family members last March when he was struck; he told his family to go on without him.
Months later, Gazan journalist Samar Abu Elouf photographed Ajjour in Qatar, where he fled for medical treatment. One of Eluof’s portraits of the nine-year-old was recognized with the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year award, as announced today, April 17.
While on assignment for a New York Times story on Gazans receiving medical treatment in Qatar, Elouf photographed Ajjour partially illuminated by a beam of sunlight that reveals both the child’s unyielding gaze and the sheer devastation of his injuries. The self-taught photojournalist left Gaza in December 2023 and lives in the same apartment complex as Ajjour.
The striking photograph provides a glimpse into the reality faced by thousands of other children in Gaza, which is home to the highest number of child amputees anywhere in the world, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly,” World Press Photo Foundation Executive Director Joumana El Zein Khoury said in a statement. “It tells the story of one boy, but also of a widerwar that will have an impact for generations.”
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and a UN Special Committee, characterize Israel’s assaults on Gaza as genocide. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more members of the media have been killed since Israel’s attacks on Gaza began in October 2023 than in any other conflict the organization has documented.
“This young boy’s life deserves to be understood, and this picture does what great photojournalism can do: provide a layered entry point into a complex story and the incentive to prolong one’s encounter with that story,” World Press Photo Global Jury Chair Lucy Conticello said in a press release.
Samar Abu Elouf is the second Palestinian photojournalist to win the World Press Photo’s top award since October 2023. Last April, the prize went to Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem, who captured a Gazan woman clutching the small body bag that held the body of her five-year-old niece.
This year, over 59,000 images taken by photographers from 141 countries were considered for the coveted annual award. The two runners-up for World Photo of the Year captured Chinese immigrants crossing the United States-Mexico border and a man standing in a drought-stricken riverbed in the Amazon, respectively. The contest’s regional winners include snippets of life amid political turmoil: a groom in Sudan on a cell phone, a portrait of a trans man in the Netherlands revealing top-surgery scars, and photos of a Ukrainian child suffering from panic attacks.
Elouf will receive a €10,000 (~$11,300) cash prize and a Fujifilm camera. The photo will tour in a year-long global exhibition with other regional winners and finalists in North America, South America, Europe, and Australia.