In the war-torn Gaza Strip, a grief-stricken Palestinian woman clung to the body of her 5-year-old niece and buried her head in her hands. The girl died as a result of an Israeli air strike. The photo recently won the 2024 World Press Photo Awards.
The photograph was taken by Reuters photojournalist Mohammed Salem and is a living Gaza woman, Inas Abu Mamar, with the body of 5-year-old Sally wrapped in white cloth and a body bag visible in the blue underfoot. In the background is the white wall tiles of the morgue, and neither the living nor the dead can see their faces, nor do they know what Sally looks like, nor what Mamal looks like. The simple blue, white and yellow are very visually impactful, and the stories that should be told have been frozen in the picture.
Last October, an Israeli missile hit the home of Khan Younissari in the southern Gaza Strip, killing her mother and a younger sister.
On October 17, photojournalist Salem met 36-year-old Mamal at Khan Younis's Nasser hospital, where she was hugging Sally's body wrapped in a white cloth, separated by yin and yang, in the morgue.
The World Press Photo Awards quoted Salem as inspiration: "It was a powerful and sad moment. I feel that this photograph encapsulates the outside world's perception of what is happening in the Gaza Strip...... People are confused, fleeing from one place to another, anxious about their fate and that of their loved ones. And this woman caught my attention, she held the body of the little girl and refused to let go".
This moment was particularly touching to the photographer, as his wife had just given birth to their child a few days earlier.
Salem took several pictures of Mamal, and at one moment, the doctor came over to comfort her, "The doctor told me to let go...... But I said don't bother us."
The judging panel of the World Press Photo Awards believes that countless broken families and heart-wrenching fates can be seen in the many photographs that reflect the suffering of people in the midst of war.
According to Schiltz, the chairman of the jury, it is indeed a deeply contagious scene, "Once you see it, it is imprinted in your mind." It is like a literal and figurative message that conveys the horrors and struggles of conflict" and considers "an extremely strong argument for peace".
Salem's photograph of a woman hugging her niece and one wailing, but this one didn't win, but the one with a headscarf and her face buried in a corpse won because "only that invisible face can represent the face of all suffering." This is a high-level evaluation, because the individual crying faces can no longer carry all the grievances, helplessness and misfortune.
When you compare two photos of the same scene, this feeling is very obvious.
Upon learning of the award, photographer Salem said, "I pray that this image will spread throughout the world and become a reason to stop the war and the suffering that the Palestinian people are experiencing." I dedicate this achievement to the souls of the martyrs of the press, who gave their blood so that their noble message could reach the whole world".
Salem saluted his peers, who have no shortage of good photographers in Gaza City, but many of them, like the girl Sally, have never been able to open their eyes again.