The shot by Mohammed Salem (Reuters).
A woman with a long blue dress and a veiled head, curled up on the ground, holds the lifeless body of a little girl close to her, closed inside a white sheet, as Islamic tradition dictates for the deceased. The woman has her head bent over the little girl, resting on her arm, bent over in excruciating pain. He hugs her little girl almost as if he wanted to protect her, keep her with him. She is a Palestinian woman from Gaza, she is 36 years old, her name is Inas Abu Maamar, and the little girl in her arms is Saly, her 5-year-old granddaughter, who died during an Israeli missile attack in which her mother and daughter also died. her sister. The photo was taken at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 17 October 2023. The photographer, Mohammed Salem, works for the Reuters agency. And with this shot won the World Press Photo 2024 “Photo of the Year” award, the most prestigious photojournalism award in the world, founded in 1955.
The photo is titled “A Palestinian woman hugs her granddaughter’s body”, the photographer explained that he took it just a few days after his wife gave birth and describes it as “a powerful and sad moment that sums up the larger sense of what is happening in the Gaza Strip”. A composed and poignant image. We do not see the face of Inas Abu Maamar, the tears. We only see the white wrapping of the little girl. The award jury praised Salem’s shot, a photojournalist already awarded in the past for his work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. the care, the respectful delicacy in evocatively portraying a moment of unspeakable pain. This photo, the jury said, offers a “metaphorical and literal glimpse into unimaginable loss.”
An image which, as many have observed, recalls Michelangelo’s Pietà, therefore renamed “The Gaza Pietà”. It encompasses the tragedy of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, where it is estimated that to date, after six months of war, more than 32 thousand people have died. But it evokes a universal pain, the one that every conflict or internal situation of violence in every corner of the planet inevitably brings with it.
Among other World Press Photo awards, the “Story of the Year” award went to South African photojournalist Lee-Ann Olwage for your project Valim-babena that tells prejudices and stigmatizations affecting people suffering from dementia in Madagascar. The “Long-Term Project” award was won by Venezuelan Alejandro Cegarra which he told the drama of immigration in Mexico from Central and South American countries. The “Open format” recognition went to the project by Julia Kochetova on the war in Ukraine.
(In the photo above, Mohammed Salem’s shot that won the World Press Photo 2024)
