Palestinian woman's grief wins World Press Photo of the Year 2024

Climate change, war, the loss of loved ones: all featured prominently in this year's winners of the World Press Photo contest

  • A woman in blue dress and a yellow headscarf cradles the body of a dead child that has been wrapped in white burial material
    'A Palestinian Woman Embraces the Body of Her Niece': The winner of the World Press Photo of the Year, this picture from Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem captures a moment of unbearable pain: Inas Abu Maamar cradles the body of her niece Saly, who was killed by an Israeli missile strike in Gaza. The image speaks to the universal pain of losing a child, and it "sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip," Salem wrote (image: Reuters/Salem)
  • An Israeli soldier stands in a forested clearing and looks down at the ground that is covered in debris following the Hamas attack on Israel
    'The Aftermath of the Supernova Festival Attack': Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following Hamas' large-scale attack on southern Israel on 7 October, 2023. As part of the attack, hundreds were killed, and dozens were taken captive at the Supernova Music Festival. Photographer Leon Neal captured the scene above on 12 October, as Israeli forces continued to search through the site for personal effects of the killed and missing (image: Leon Neal)
  • A Palestinian woman stands alone amidst the rubble of bombed out houses in Gaza
    'Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza': The jury chose the previous photo and this one from Gaza, taken by Mustafa Hassouna for Anadolu Agency, for a special mention award. "While each photograph shows a single individual in the aftermath of a horrific attack, the contrast between the scenes helps viewers understand the differing scales of devastation without minimising the individual suffering," they said (image: Mustafa Hassouna)
  • A man in a bright orange jacket sits amidst rubble and debris holding the hand of a corpse that is not visible
    'A Father's Pain': On 6 February 2023, a powerful earthquake struck southern Turkey, killing more than 55,000 people and toppling tons of buildings. Hancer, above, lost his 15-year-old daughter Irmak in the quake. Despite freezing cold and rain, he kept holding his dead daughter's hand. "Take pictures of my child," he told AFP photographer Adem Altan, who took this prize-winning shot in the Europe singles category (image: Adem Altan)
  • A woman dressed in a loose white garment kisses her son, who is wearing military fatigues and walking with crutches, on the cheek
    'Returning Home From War': This shot from photographer Vincent Haiges, which won the Africa singles category, shows the moment when 24-year-old Kibrom Berhane greets his mother for the first time since joining the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) two years prior. The TDF fought against the Ethiopian government from 2020 to 2022. The photographer "wanted to show the aftermath of the war, revealing its hidden consequences" (image: Vincent Haiges)
  • A man and a boy stand side by side in water, their torsos visible under the waterline
    'Fighting, Not Sinking': In this shot taken by Eddie Jim on Kioa Island, Fiji, 72-year-old Lotomau Fiafia stands with his grandson John at the place where he remembers the shoreline being when he was a boy. The image, top in the Southeast Asia and Oceania singles category, powerfully captures how fast sea levels are rising as a consequence of warming temperatures and climate change (image: Eddie Jim)
  • A man in tattered clothes holds up a Ukrainian flag, his face hidden by the flag
    'War is Personal': As Russia's war on Ukraine continues, this image by Julia Kochetova is part of a project that earned the World Press Photo Open Format Award. Kochetova created a website that combines photojournalism with personal, diary-style documentation, "to show the world what it is like to live with war as an everyday reality," the jury wrote. The project also includes poetry, audio clips and music (image: Julia Kochetova)
  • A fisherman crosses a sandy expanse that is a dried up section of the Amazon River.
    'Drought in the Amazon': What looks like a desert is actually a dry tributary of the Amazon River: Lalo de Almeida captured a fisherman against the devastated landscape in this photo for newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo. It starkly captures the Amazon basin's most intense drought ever, which was caused in part by rising global temperatures, and especially hurt Indigenous communities. The shot won the South America singles prize (image: Lalo de Almeida)
  • A man stands on a rock amidst burnt trees and looks off into the distance
    'A Day in the Life of a Quebec Fire Crew': This shot by Charles-Frederick Ouellet shows firefighter Theo Dagnaud scanning the horizon after massive forest fires swept across large parts of Canada. The fires were longer in duration and more intense than usual; a study by the Canadian government argued that wildfire-prone conditions are twice as severe due to climate change. Ouellet's shot won the North and Central American singles category (image: Charles-Frederick Ouellet)