Inas Abu Maamar is seen in a photo wearing a simple blue garment and a mustard brown headscarf adorned with raised knot patterns. She cradles the shroud covering a small body in her arms, her head bowed into the crook of her left arm. The photograph, taken by Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem on October 17, 2023, was awarded the prestigious World Press Photo of the Year by the World Press Photo Foundation. The image captures the heartbreaking moment of a Palestinian woman grieving the loss of her young niece in the aftermath of an Israeli air raid.
The photograph, titled “A Palestinian Woman Embraces the Body of Her Niece,” shows Abu Maamar with her face obscured, highlighting her grief and suffering in a way that allows viewers to engage with the complexity of her emotions. However, the image has been cropped to remove contextual details surrounding the woman and the circumstances that led to the child’s death, reinforcing a particular type of liberal politics that sanitizes the narrative of conflict.
The power dynamics at play, with an army supported by the US facing off against armed groups without such support, have led to a skewed portrayal of the situation in Gaza in mainstream media. Palestinian photojournalists have been unfairly discredited as Hamas sympathizers by Israeli forces, leading to a silencing of their work and a distortion of the narrative. This pressure has influenced wire services and global news outlets to work only with those approved by corporate media, perpetuating a biased and limited perspective on the ongoing crisis in Gaza.