Swede wins World Press Photo award

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 15 February 2013

Paul Hansen captured the World Press Photo award with a poignant image depicting two Palestinian children killed in an Israeli missile strike. The photo highlights the contrast between adult grief and child innocence.

Summary

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.

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 picture 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.

The Associated Press won eight 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.

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. - AP