Photo from Gaza has won World Press Photo 2024

[EasterIssland]

https://www.worldpressphoto.org/contest/2024

A Palestinian Woman Embraces the Body of Her Niece
Mohammed Salem, Palestine, Reuters

Unfortunately this conflict has left us with many pictures like this one, as a mum I’ll always remember this one and that no mum in the world should be holding the body of their deceased child

So incredibly sad.

Desperately sad. And so pointless that these precious lives were taken. For what?

It's horrific. I will never forgive our government for supporting something so unnecessarily cruel.

Horrific

These are historical moments. You can see the anguish of mothers losing their children.

callous, shocking and brutal ends to so many young innocent little lives. When Sunak said “we” were on Israel’s side he wasn’t speaking for me.

Losing a child is more than dying yourself. Your heart doesn't just break. Everything breaks. The emptiness, that hole inside. All that's left is the shell around where that little life was everything to you. And somehow that shell that is your body keeps pumping blood and breathing oxygen, even though every fibre of your being feels that it shouldn't.

And the pain doesn't leave. Eventually, you somehow make room for it, but you never stop loving your child and you never stop having that hole in your world where they should be. Part of you dies when your child dies. It just takes longer for the rest of yourself to catch up.

Very very moving, this photo deserved to win, it's a reminder of who war really affects the most.

No words 💔

I'm so sorry @Scirocco 💔from what you have previously said, you are speaking from unbearable personal experience.

I know I am pro-Israel, and on many issues we disagree, but there are no 'sides' in this. Every precious child lost is one too many, this is heartbreaking.💔

A devastating photo that captures the heartbreak of the past 6 months so well.

Horrific, so devastating.

Devastating. Truly have no words that touch. Upon the gravity of what is going on.

Utterly heartbreaking

There are 14 000 or more children like this, or buried under rubble. Many broken hearted mothers and fathers. I can't understand how this can go on and on, how can politicians support it, why does nobody say stop, enough killing.

I remember feeling grateful for being able to kiss my daughter goodnight when the relentless bombing of Gaza began.

Unfortunately this photo is not unique in its content in that X has been full of similar photos of people cradling deceased relatives. There reaches a point when you can’t keep looking and even become accepting of the fact there’s no point being upset or angry- as nothing changes.

I hope some good comes out of this for the Palestinians, but perhaps that too is a pointless. Sorry for being depressing.

@Scirocco - your post is very moving.

From the photographer

Beautiful little girl, whose life was taken so soon in such a cruel way 💔

I don’t know why, I didn’t expect to see that photo. I feel so sad. Children aren’t meant to die before their parents.

People stopped seeing Palestinians as people. It's easier to defend the actions of the IDF if you don't have to see the faces of the children they kill.

Saly was a child. She was not a terrorist, or a 'regrettable but unavoidable casualty', or 'collateral damage'. She was a child.

When people rush to support the killing of innocent people, perhaps they should instead think that Saly was a little girl with hopes and dreams, so similar to all our children. So are all the other children alive and dead in Palestine today.

There were alternatives to this. But this course of action, this mass killing of innocent children, this was what people chose.

I highly recommend to any other Jewish posters that they see the multiple awards winning 2023 documentary Israelism.
https://www.israelismfilm.com/
Two young American Jews - Simone Zimmerman and Eitan - are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military. Simone supports Israel on ‘the other battlefield:’ America’s college campuses. When they witness Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken.They join the movement of young American Jews battling the old guard over Israel’s centrality in American Judaism, and demanding freedom for the Palestinian people. Their stories reveal a generational divide in the American Jewish community as more young Jews question the narratives their synagogues and Hebrew school teachers fed them as children. The film also features voices like Jacqui, a Jewish educator who says “Judaism is Israel and Israel is Judaism”, and former Anti-Defamation League President Abe Foxman, who claims voices like Simone and Eitan’s represent a small minority. Thought leaders like Peter Beinart, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Noura Erakat, Cornel West, and Noam Chomsky also weigh in.Directed by two first-time Jewish filmmakers who share a similar story to the film’s protagonists, Israelism is produced by Peabody-winner and 4-time Emmy-nominee Daniel J. Chalfen (Loudmouth, Boycott), executive produced by two-time Emmy-winner Brian A. Kates (Marvelous Ms. Maisel, Succession) and edited by Emmy-winner Tony Hale (The Story of Plastic), Israelism uniquely explores how Jewish attitudes towards Israel are changing dramatically, with massive consequences for the region and for Judaism itself.