A moving portrait of nine-year-old Mahmoud Ajjour, a young Gazan boy who lost both arms in an Israeli airstrike, has been named World Press Photo of the Year 2025.
The image, taken by Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times, shows Mahmoud bathed in warm light, facing a window in quiet contemplation.
The photograph is not only a powerful act of photojournalism, but a personal story too. Abu Elouf, who was evacuated from Gaza in December 2023, now lives in the same apartment complex as Mahmoud in Doha. There, she has been documenting the stories of Gazans who made it out for treatment, including Mahmoud, who was injured while fleeing an Israeli attack in Gaza City in March 2024. As he turned back to urge his family to run, an explosion severed one arm and mutilated the other.
Today, in Qatar, Mahmoud is learning to navigate his new life — playing games on his phone, writing, and even opening doors with his feet. His dream? To get prosthetics and live life as any other child.
The war in Gaza has taken a disproportionate toll on children, with the United Nations estimating that by December 2024, Gaza had the highest per capita number of child amputees in the world.
“This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly,” said Joumana El Zein Khoury, Executive Director of World Press Photo. “It tells the story of one boy, but also of a wider war that will have an impact for generations. Looking at our archive, in the 70th year of World Press Photo, I am confronted by too many images like this one."
She added: “I remain 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.”
Global jury chair Lucy Conticello, Director of Photography for M, Le Monde’s weekend magazine, echoed this sentiment:
“This young boy's life deserves to be understood, and this picture does what great photojournalism can do: provide a layered entry point into a complex story, and the incentive to prolong one's encounter with that story. In my opinion, this image by Samar Abu Elouf was a clear winner from the start.”
Two finalists were also honoured alongside the winning image: Night Crossing by John Moore for Getty Images, and Droughts in the Amazon by Musuk Nolte for Panos Pictures, Bertha Foundation.
In Night Crossing, Chinese migrants are seen huddling for warmth during a cold rain after crossing the US–Mexico border — an intimate glimpse into the often-politicised realities of migration.
In Droughts in the Amazon, a young man carries food to his mother in the village of Manacapuru, once accessible by boat. He now walks two kilometres along a dry riverbed — a haunting vision of the world’s largest rainforest in crisis.
These stories were selected from over 59,000 images submitted by nearly 3,800 photographers across 141 countries.
The winning works will be showcased at the World Press Photo Exhibition 2025, which opens at MPB Gallery at Here East in London from 23 May–25 August. The travelling exhibition will visit over 60 locations around the world.
