A haunting image of a grieving Palestinian woman embracing her little niece, killed in an Israeli strike in war-torn Gaza, won the 2024 World Press Photo of the Year Award Thursday. The picture taken by Reuters news agency's Mohammed Salem shows Inas Abu Maamar cradling the body of five-year-old Saly, who was killed with her mother and sister when a missile hit their home in Khan Younis in October. Salem was in Khan Younis' Nasser hospital on October 17 when he saw Maamar, 36, sobbing and tightly holding the wrapped body of her relative in the hospital's morgue. The picture was taken 10 days after the start of the conflict started when militants from Gaza's Hamas rulers staged an unprecedented attack on Israel. "It was a powerful and a sad moment and I felt the picture sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip," World Press Photo quoted Salem as saying.
"It is a really profoundly affecting image," added Fiona Shields, jury chairwoman. "Once you've seen it, it's kind of seared in your mind," she said. "It works as a kind of literal and metaphorical message really about the horror and futility of conflict." "It's an incredibly powerful argument for peace," Shields added. Salem's winning image portrays Inas Abu Maamar, 36, sobbing while holding Saly's sheet-clad body in the hospital morgue. "Mohammed received the news of his WPP award with humility, saying that this is not a photo to celebrate but that he appreciates its recognition and the opportunity to publish it to a wider audience," Reuters' Global Editor for Pictures and Video, Rickey Rogers, said at a ceremony in Amsterdam.
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