Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem wins the prestigious 2024 World Press Photo of the Year award for his image of a Palestinian woman cradling the body of her five-year-old niece in the Gaza Strip.
The picture was taken on Oct. 17, 2023, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where families were searching for relatives.
Salem’s winning image portrays Inas Abu Maamar, 36, sobbing while holding Saly’s sheet-clad body in the hospital morgue.
The jury of the Amsterdam-based World Press Photo Foundation says Salem’s winning image is “composed with care and respect, offering at once a metaphorical and literal glimpse into unimaginable loss.”
This image provided by World Press Photo and taken by Mohammed Salem of the Reuters news agency won the World Press Photo Award of the Year and shows Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, 36, embracing the body of her 5-year-old niece Saly, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters/World Press Photo via AP)
“I felt the picture sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip,” Salem said when the image was first published in November.
“People were confused, running from one place to another, anxious to know the fate of their loved ones, and this woman caught my eye as she was holding the body of the little girl and refused to let go.”
The announcement of the award comes in the wake of outcry last month when the Associated Press won a Pictures of the Year International award in the Team Picture Story of the Year category for its photo essay “Israel and Hamas War,” which includes an image showing a half-naked Israeli woman, identified as Shani Louk, lying seemingly unconscious face-down in the back of a pickup truck filled with armed Gazan men on October 7.
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
From the Liveblog of
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
