LONDON — A haunting image of a young Gazan boy recovering from war injuries has been named World Press Photo of the Year for 2025.

The portrait, taken by Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for the New York Times, shows nine-year-old Mahmoud Ajjour, who lost both arms in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in March 2024.

Abu Elouf, who was evacuated from Gaza in late 2023, lives in the same apartment complex as Mahmoud in Doha, Qatar.

She has documented the lives of several wounded Gazans who made it out for treatment.

"This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly," said World Press Photo executive director Joumana El Zein Khoury.

"It tells the story of one boy, but also of a wider war that will have an impact for generations."

Two finalists were selected as runners up alongside the photo of the year.

Night Crossing by John Moore for Getty Images and Droughts in the Amazon by Musuk Nolte for Panos Pictures, Bertha Foundation.

In Night Crossing, Chinese migrants warm themselves during a cold rain after crossing the US–Mexico border.

This striking image offers a powerful, intimate view of life at the border, capturing the complex realities of migration often lost in the polarised debate in the United States.

In Droughts in the Amazon, a young man brings food to his mother who lives in the village of Manacapuru.

A young man carries food to his mother in the Amazon village of Manacapuru — once reachable by boat, now cut off by drought.

He walks two kilometers along a dry riverbed, a stark reminder of the region's deepening water crisis.

The sight of parched, desert-like terrain in the world's largest rainforest underscores the alarming scale of the drought.

This year's winners represent the best of the 59,320 photographs by 3,778 photographers from 141 countries. — BBC