A HEARTBREAKING picture of a 9-year-old Palestinian boy who lost both his arms in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City has won the prestigious 2025 Photo of the Year Award.
The Palestinian boy, Mahmoud Ajjour, lost both arms while fleeing an attack by the Zionist regime in March 2024.
In a statement, the World Press Photo association said that ‘After he turned back to urge his family onwards, an explosion severed one of his arms and mutilated the other’.
His mutilated arms had to be amputated later following his evacuation to the capital of Qatar for emergency medical treatment.
Samar Abu Elouf, the Palestinian photographer who won the award, said the young boy’s photo ‘wasn’t just a picture, it was the pain of a homeland.’
Elouf described in detail the emotional trauma and anger she felt when taking pictures of injured Palestinians saying: ‘I took the pictures of the injured Palestinians with a heavy heart, it cost me crying for days and being in bed to feel completely helpless in the face of the hardship they had to undergo.’
Joumana El Zein Khoury, Executive Director of the World Press Photo association, denounced Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza saying that: ‘This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly. It tells the story of one boy, but also of a wider war that will have an impact for generations.’
Khoury went on to applaud Elouf’s efforts saying she ‘remains endlessly grateful for the photographers who, despite the personal risks and emotional costs, record these stories to give all of us the opportunity to understand, empathise, and be inspired to action.’
Writing on the X account, Elouf stated her desire ‘to capture the photo that would stop this war – that would stop the killing, the death, the starvation. And I still wish for it. But if our photos can’t stop all this tragedy and horror, then what is the value of a photo?’
The Gaza Strip now has the highest number of child amputees per head of the population than anywhere in the world according to a United Nations report that stated: ‘Across Gaza, it is estimated that 4,500 new amputees require prosthetics, in addition to the 2,000 existing cases’ and that ‘children are injured daily with permanent disabilities due to the use of internationally banned explosive weapons, bringing the total number of injuries to 7,065 children, hundreds of whom lost their limbs, sight, or hearing.’
UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) estimates that between 300 and 400 children in Gaza have had one or more limbs amputated – amputations that have to be undertaken under conditions of a medical and humanitarian blockade by the Zionist regime, that means Gaza lacks the means of proper sterilisation, equipment, or even medical experts to carry out the operations.
While one photo on its own cannot end the genocide in Gaza it has a crucial role in breaking through the total wall of silence imposed by the western imperialist governments who provide all the bombs that tear the limbs off children every hour of the day in Gaza.
This photo, along with all the revelations about the Zionist crimes against humanity, is a powerful call to the working class and youth in the US, UK and Europe to act.
The working class has the power to put an end to Zionist genocide by forcing their trade union leaders to stop just standing back while these atrocities are being committed, and confining themselves to just passing motions expressing their ‘concerns’ while their governments arm, support and encourage the Israeli regime.
These leaders must either immediately take action or be driven out of the unions and replaced with a leadership that will organise the power of the working class by calling mass general strikes to bring down their governments and bring in workers’ governments.
Workers governments will end all support for Israel and provide all the political and material support required for the Palestinians to smash the Zionist state and recognise the independent socialist state of Palestine.
