Palestinian photojournalist Samar Abu Elouf, winner of the 2025 World Press Photo award, poses next to the winning photo depicting a nine-year-old Palestinian boy who lost both his arms during an Israeli attack on the city of Gaza, at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, on April 17, 2025. (Credit: AFP.)
The heartbreaking photo of a nine-year-old Palestinian boy, who lost both his arms while fleeing an Israeli attack in Gaza, won the first prize at the World Press Photo 2025 on Thursday.
The image, captured by Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for the New York Times, is a portrait of young Mahmoud Ajjour, evacuated to Doha after an explosion tore off one arm and mutilated the other last year.
“Working on this project was a unique but painful experience,” said Abu Elouf during the awards ceremony in Amsterdam.
“Palestinian children have paid a heavy price for the horrors they have witnessed. Mahmoud is one of these children,” added the self-taught photojournalist.
Originally from Gaza City, Abu Elouf is the first Palestinian photographer to win the World Press Photo.
Evacuated from the enclave in Dec. 2023, the photojournalist portrays Palestinians injured by war, settled in Doha.
“One of the most difficult things Mahmoud’s mother explained to me was that when Mahmoud realized his arms were amputated, the first thing he said to her was: How will I be able to hug you?,” said the photographer.
A photo “that speaks very loudly”
“It's a silent photo, yet it speaks very loudly. It tells the story of a boy, but also of a wider war that will affect future generations,” said Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo.
The jury praised the “strong composition and attention to light” of the photo, as well as its thought-provoking subject, particularly about Mahmoud’s future.
The boy is now learning to play on his phone, write, and open doors with his feet.
“Mahmoud has a very simple dream: he wants to get prosthetics and live his life like any other child,” contest organizers said in a statement.
The photographer also drew attention to the uncertain fate of her colleague, injured during Israeli strikes on a journalists' tent in Khan Younis on April 7.
“It’s difficult for me to rejoice when one of my best photographer friends in Gaza, Ihab al-Burdini, is injured,” she said, holding up photos of the hospitalized journalist.
The jury also unveiled the two finalist photos.
The first, “Droughts in the Amazon,” taken by Musuk Nolte for Panos Pictures and the Bertha Foundation, shows a man on the bed of a dried-up river in the Amazon, carrying supplies to a village once reachable by boat.
The second, “Night Crossing” by John Moore for Getty Images, shows Chinese migrants huddling by a fire during a downpour after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
The jury sifted through 59,320 photographs taken by 3,778 photojournalists to select the 42 award-winning images.
Four photographers from Agence France-Presse were selected for a regional award.
Luis Tato, in Nairobi, won the award in the “Stories” category for the Africa region, with a selection of photos illustrating the uprising of Kenyan youth.
Jérôme Brouillet won in the “Singles” category for the Asia-Pacific and Oceania region for his photo of surfer Gabriel Medina, seemingly levitating above the waves during the Olympics.
Clarens Siffroy won in the “Stories” North and Central America category for his coverage of the gang crisis in Haiti.
Finally, Anselmo Cunha won in the “Singles” category for South America for his photo of a Boeing 727-200 stranded at Salgado Filho airport in Brazil.
