Gaza: This photo of the World Press Photo of the Year-2024 Award was taken by Palestinian photographer Mohammad Salim. After taking this picture, photojournalist Salim said – It was a very impressive but sad moment. In this competition, more than 4 thousand photojournalists from 130 countries had sent 61 thousand photographs. In this, the picture of Palestinian photojournalist Mohammad Salim was selected.
In this picture, a woman is sitting with a baby girl wrapped in a shroud in her arms. The photo was taken a week after Hamas attacked Israel last year, when Israel launched attacks in Palestine’s Gaza. This incident took place in Khan Younis, where thousands of people were trying to take shelter to escape the Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip.
At this time Israel started bombing Gaza. People were ordered to leave Gaza. Meanwhile, a photographer from the international news agency Reuters visited the morgue of Nasser Hospital, where people were searching for their relatives who went missing after the bombing.
After the mortuary, photojournalist Mohammad Salim saw that Inas Abu Mamar was crying with a dead girl wrapped in a shroud in her arms, who was her five-year-old niece. The girl’s mother and other relatives were also killed in this attack.
According to Reuters, she was Ines’ favorite niece and his phone was filled with photos and videos of his niece. However, one of the girl’s brothers, Ahmed, who was four years old, survived the attack. He was not at home at the time of the attack. Now this child lives with Inas only.
Mohammed Salim, who captured this moment on camera, said, “It was a very sad moment which tells the painful story of the Gaza Strip.” Salim told that it was such a sensitive time for him because his wife had given birth to a child a day before.
Who is photojournalist Mohammad Salim?
Mohammed Salim, born in 1985, is a Palestinian photojournalist living in the Gaza Strip. He studied media at Gaza University. Salim has been working on the Palestine-Israel conflict for Reuters since 2003.
