"Mahmoud Ajjour was just nine years old when both his arms were severed during an Israeli attack on Gaza City. Three months later, in July 2024, the self-taught photojournalist Samar Abu Elouf took a moving photograph of the young boy. The image was named World Press Photo of the Year 2025 -the most sought after title in the worlds of documentary photography and photojournalism-and was quickly reproduced by major news outlets around the world."
"Within the history of the World Press Photo awards, this is in many ways a familiar narrative: a shocking image of a child, desperately injured in the midst of a devastating conflict, becoming an international symbol for the suffering of his or her people. But in other ways this image tells a different story. Elouf is not a man or a Western image maker, and Ajjour and his family are not strangers to her."
"The questions of who documents the suffering of others, which stereotypes these images can perpetuate and why, in an age of constant image dissemination and consumption, this matters more than ever, are central to World Press Photo's newly opened anniversary exhibition, the aptly named What Have We Done? Unpacking 7 Decades of World Press Photo. The show sets out not just to explore the impact of an award which, through its winners' work, has undoubtedly shaped public understanding of the world, "
A photograph of nine-year-old Mahmoud Ajjour, who lost both arms in an Israeli attack on Gaza City, won World Press Photo of the Year 2025. The image was taken by self-taught photojournalist Samar Abu Elouf and was widely reproduced by major news outlets. The image echoes a historical pattern of shocking photographs of injured children becoming symbols of collective suffering, but diverges because the photographer is a woman from the region with an existing relationship to the subject. An anniversary exhibition, What Have We Done? Unpacking 7 Decades of World Press Photo, examines who documents suffering, stereotypes produced, and potential harms caused by such imagery, using landmark historic photographs.
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