Amsterdam – Swedish photographer Paul Hansen won the 2012 World Press Photo award Friday for newspaper Dagens Nyheter with a picture of two Palestinian children killed in an Israeli missile strike being carried to their funeral.
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The picture shows a group of men marching the dead bodies through a narrow street in Gaza City. The victims, a brother and sister, are wrapped in white cloth with only their faces showing.
“The strength of the pictures lies in the way it contrasts the anger and sorrow of the adults with the innocence of the children,” said jury member Mayu Mohanna of Peru. “It’s a picture I will not forget.”
World Press Photo, one of photojournalism’s most prestigious contests, issued awards in nine categories to 54 photographers of 32 nationalities.
Hansen’s Nov. 20 shot won top prize in both the spot news single photograph category and the overall competition. It portrays 2-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her 3-year-old brother Muhammad, who were killed when their house was destroyed by the Israeli attack. They are being carried by grieving uncles, as their father Fouad was also killed, and his body can be seen in the background of the picture.
The children’s mother, whose name was not provided, was in intensive care.
“This prize is the highest honor you can get in the profession,” Hansen told The Associated Press. “I’m very happy, but also very sad. The family lost two children and the mother is unconscious in a hospital.”
“These situations are so visually complex,” he added. “It’s difficult to convey the emotions, to translate what is happening. The light is harsh and there are a lot of people.
“But in the alley the light bounced off the walls, so I thought this is a place where you can see that it’s a procession. … You get the depth in the image, and the bouncing light.”
Violence in the Middle East, and its effect upon civilians, was the dominant theme in the hard news categories.
The Associated Press won seven awards in all, including top prizes for a spot news series for Bernat Armangue of Spain for photos he took in Gaza during November; and for Rodrigo Abd of Argentina for general news single photograph, with a picture of a woman with a bloodstained face weeping in Idib, Syria, on March 10.
She was identified as Aida, and her photo of silent grief is in some ways a reverse image of Hansen’s winning shot. She received severe injuries when her house was shelled by the Syrian Army, killing her husband and two children.
In other categories, Wei Seng Chen of Malaysia won in the sports singles category with a shot of what might be considered a local “extreme sport”: a man clutching the tails of two bulls as they pull him through a watery rice field in Batu Sangkar, Indonesia.
The competition also includes portrait series, scenes from everyday life, and nature photography, among others.
The contest drew entries from professional press photographers, photojournalists and documentary photographers across the world. In all, 103,481 images were submitted by 5,666 photographers from 124 countries.
The photos were submitted anonymously to a panel of 19 jury members, chaired by AP Director of Photography Santiago Lyon, and judged in multiple rounds.
The winners were all “stellar examples of first-rate photojournalism,” Lyon said.
Other judges came from Germany, Iraq, Peru, France, Sweden, China, Britain, Spain, Azerbaijan, South Africa, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the U.S.
Hansen will receive a (EURO)10,000 prize at ceremonies and the opening of the year’s exhibition April 25-27 in Amsterdam.
Does anyone out there know that in Syria they are killing kids every day? Or nobody cares?
Children killed by a war their own people started. How much more national suicide will the Arabs be committing?
Israel is an easy target because the world media knows that Israel won’t do anything about it, such as crack down on foreign reporters like Reuters, et al. You don’t see photos of Syrian massacres because Syria doesn’t allow foreign reporters or photographers to take pictures, under threat of arrest. Most Arab countries have official state-run news outlets that filter everything. Like the United States, Israel is a free country with guaranteed freedom of the press. This is one of the disadvantages.
they guy has talent it is a amazing picture and that is why it won. I agree with #1 and 2 but nevertheless it is an amazing picture
Golda Meir once said” I can forgive someone who kills my children,But i can not forgive anyone who make me kill their children. That fact that this pictures “claims ” that these children were killed my Israel doesn’t have to be the case. The children could have been killed anywhere and at anytime and by anyone. I don’t believe half the things I hear, and even less the things I see.
Great photo. It well illustrates the victims of human shield strategy of war. Only animals in the Arabian peninsula use children as a weapon of war.
what is wrong with this world? why is a such a kind of picture the winner of such an award? even if it was the other way around (israeli children killed by arab terrorists C”V) i still wouldn’t approve! it says something very sad about the competition coordinators! find something positive to make the picture of the year!
the intended purpose accomplished dramaticly, a picture indeetd worth a 1000+ words .
Bunch of made up lies, there’s no proof that these children were killed by Israel, in fact there’s no proof that they are even dead, it’s just a picture.
Israel is an easy scapegoat and these choleras take advantage of that.
This picture should get an Academy Award for Best Portrayal of a Fake Funeral by Terrorists, and the kids Best Supporting Actors for staying still so long.
the kid looks too tall for that little face they chazoko of ziuf
This very award simply spells out the mamar Chazal:
“Kol haMetzar leYisrael Naseh Rosh”
Otherwise,(whether amazing or not) it has no logical reasoning on why out of ALL candidates this one won!
Reply to 9, 10, &11;
Do you have any doubt that Israeli missiles kill Palestinian kids? Of course we do! This is how these animals are winning the pr war against all odds. They use their children as human shields and when we attack the terrorists we kill the kids as well. Very effective strategy for them, martyr a few kids, save money on bringing them up, and get world opinion on their side.
It is hard for good people to fathom but these animals have no regard for life, even their own as we see in Syria, Saudi Arabia (where they stone their own women) and throughout the world.
When I was young I heard about Japanese kamikaze pilots and thought “it’s over. How can you fight people that are willing to fly into a suicide attack.” But the Moslems are so much worse than that! They believe it is a mizvah to martyr their kids for their greater good
ימות זכאי ואל ימות חייב