Portrait of Palestinian boy who lost both arms in Israeli strike named press photo of the year

[David__77]

A haunting portrait of a young Palestinian boy from Gaza who lost both of his arms in an Israeli strike has been named World Press Photo of the Year for 2025.

Mahmoud Ajjour, 9, was fleeing an Israeli attack in Gaza in with his family when he turned back to urge his loved ones to move forward, the World Press Photo organization said in a statement accompanying the picture taken by Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf.

…

One of Ajjour's arms was completely severed, while the other was left severely injured and ultimately had to be amputated.

“One of the most difficult things Mahmoud’s mother explained to me was how when Mahmoud first came to the realization that his arms were amputated,” Abu Elouf said in the statement from the World Press Photo organization. “The first sentence he said to her was, ‘How will I be able to hug you?’”

…

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna201810

[malaise]

1. Too sad

Just another war crime victim

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Another war on the Other.

The child I am certain we both immediately thought of leads a better life today, thankfully…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5453719/Iraqi-severely-injured-2003-U-S-airstrike-hails-birth-son.html

[malaise]

3. The other that doesn't matter

Tears

[Kid Berwyn]

4. Each matters infinitely, whether we know it or not.

From an interview with Sir Martin Rees, former Astronomer Royal:

Excerpt…

It really is easier to understand a star than to understand the simplest of the organisms, than to understand an insect or a frog. And that’s because what makes it hard to understand is the layers of structures inside them — the complexities, which, of course are very great indeed.

Within the case of a star, everything is so hot that there is not complex chemistry, it’s all broken down into simple atomic gas which is easy to understand. And, by extension, the early universe — the Big Bang — which is even hotter than the star, may also be more amenable to our understanding than life.

So, it’s not presumptuous to me that we could learn something about the universe or stars, because what makes things hard to understand is not size, but complexity. But this, incidentally, also leads — when we get to something that’s on the interface between astronomy and biology — like the origin of life — then, that is a much more difficult question.

So, although we can now say fairly confidently that there are many Earth-like planets around other stars, whether life will evolve on those stars, given the right environment, like the young Earth, is a question that I don’t think we can answer confidently, because that’s a biological question.

So, I think it will be a long time before we have any clear betting on whether there is simple life or intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But I still think it’s important to search for it.

Source: https://medium.com/@jonathan.kochmer/interview-w-sir-martin-rees-astronomer-royal-of-england-part-2-of-3-from-otterarchives-24fb29c5e887

Information is the new physics. And the highest form of information is love.

[malaise]

5. Thanks for this

Each matters infinitely, whether we know it or not.

[Ping Tung]

6. The war crime was dismissed by the war criminals and apologists as necessary "collateral damage".

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Friedrich Nietzsche