Among the thousands of images that have documented the genocide in Gaza, from famine and the demolition of residential towers to the faces of victims, some have appeared on the front pages of international newspapers and magazines, been nominated for or won global awards, while others have spread widely across social media. Yet this journey does not happen to every photograph. What enables a single image to move beyond its immediate frame and news function, gaining a lasting place in the world’s visual memory?
One such image shows a mother running while covering herself with a piece of cloth from a yellow curtain, her young daughter clinging to her neck as traces of destruction surround them. It was taken by Gaza photographer Ali Jadallah, who was documenting an Israeli strike on a residential building and the injuries and destruction it caused. Jadallah, an Anadolu photojournalist who has spent eighteen years in photojournalism, says his work is not limited to documenting the moment of an event, but extends to what follows: the rescue and recovery of victims and the wider aftermath of destruction. “The photograph of the mother and her daughter is one of thousands of images I have taken. When I took it, I felt there was something distinctive about it, something that would draw the world’s attention, because it went beyond the scene of escape and embodied the emotion of motherhood, with its warmth, security and protection, amid a genocide that had transformed their reality into an attempt to escape death.” Ali Jadallah is the spelling used by World Press Photo and Anadolu.World Press Photo
For Jadallah, photographs go beyond the frame and the act of documentation to reveal human details expressed through emotion, such as joy, pain, spontaneous facial expressions, the eyes and body movement, alongside personal details and the surrounding environment, while preserving human dignity. He believes that the presence of these elements gives an image its strength and its ability to command attention.
International media organisations have published Jadallah’s photographs, and his work has appeared in US magazines including Time, U.S. News and The Atlantic. Yet circulation alone does not explain why some photographs attain such prominence while thousands of others do not.
After the shutter is pressed, an image enters a stage in which the photographer alone no longer determines its fate. It moves into newsrooms, where it is selected, verified and compared with other images before reaching the public. Jadallah also praises the role of audiences in accelerating the circulation of photographs and expanding solidarity with victims, through sharing them on social media platforms and search engines, and eventually printing and carrying them at solidarity demonstrations.
From the field to the front page
Amid the rubble of Jabalia refugee camp, photographer Saher Alghorra moves through the destruction while photographing a human-interest story for The New York Times. He tells Al Jazeera Journalism Review: “Events in Gaza imposed themselves on the lenses of photojournalists, and the human power of a scene is one of the elements that gives an image its ability to reach and affect audiences.” World Press Photo uses the spelling Saher Alghorra. World Press Photo
During the war of genocide, Alghorra took thousands of photographs. Among them was an image of two-year-old Yazan Abu Ful, documenting the effects of malnutrition and famine on his body. In a wide shot, he photographed the family of Hassan al-Shafai breaking their Ramadan fast on the ruins of their home in Beit Lahia, in a moving scene depicting the reality imposed upon them. The contrast between the two photographs shows that images of genocide do not depend on a single element to move beyond their immediate frame. Their ability to become embedded in visual memory lies in their strength, proximity to the event and capacity to condense an entire story into one image.
One of Alghorra’s photographs reached the front page of The New York Times, depicting famine in Gaza and the lives of residents living along the “Yellow Line”. He says he received positive feedback from the editor before the image drew international attention and his series Witnessing Gaza won a World Press Photo award. World Press Photo lists Witnessing Gaza by Saher Alghorra among the winners of its 2026 contest.World Press Photo
Alghorra believes the real impact of photographs can be measured by what they may achieve in the lives of victims. He says the circulation and widespread sharing of Yazan’s image contributed to global solidarity campaigns and drew international public attention to Gaza, which, in his assessment, helped place pressure on Israel to allow aid into the Strip. Yet reaching the front page and winning awards do not by themselves answer the question of what makes an image successful. Thousands of powerful photographs are taken during wars, and not all receive the same exposure. The issue therefore concerns not only what the photographer sees, but also what the newsroom considers worthy of publication, the context and timing in which the image appears, and its capacity to represent an event larger than the moment in which it was taken.
Inside the newsroom
At Anadolu Agency in the Turkish capital Ankara, editor and photojournalist Mustafa Hassouna receives photographs from Gaza by email and through the agency’s cloud platforms before they undergo selection and review. Hassouna, who has spent twelve years working in photography, says the selection process is based on several criteria, including technical quality, the strength and importance of the event, and the rarity of the image. These criteria show that a photograph does not reach audiences through emotional force alone. The editorial process determines which scene deserves to be seen, at what moment and in what context. When thousands of photographs arrive from a single location, the rarity of the moment, the significance of the event and the clarity of the image all influence its chances of wider circulation. Anadolu itself uses the spelling Mustafa Hassouna.
Hassouna says: “Some photographs are not published because of their psychological impact on viewers. The dignity of victims remains one of the fundamental considerations when dealing with images. A single photograph may document a crime, but at the same time it may expose a body, an injury or an intensely private moment for a family that has lost one of its members.” He believes the continued flow of photographs from the scene helps keep the genocide present in the public’s visual memory. Images do not perform their role only once. As an event continues, they can return to prominence, acquiring new meaning or regaining earlier attention.
According to curator and photographer Mohamed Somji, the value of an image does not begin at the moment it is taken. A photograph that remains inside a photographer’s camera remains a document with limited circulation, while one promoted by a platform or agency may become part of history. In his view, its value is shaped through circulation, republication, framing and repetition. Mohamed Somji is the spelling used by Gulf Photo Plus and other institutions with which he works.
The image economy
Somji defines the “image economy” as the circulation, operation, production and distribution of images that shape how wars are perceived and, in many cases, how they are fought. He believes the value of an image is connected to “gatekeepers”: who controls the camera and who controls distribution. Social media, he argues, has broken part of this monopoly, which is why the image economy of the genocide in Gaza has not resembled that of previous wars.
He says: “In the genocide in Gaza, the process took a different form. The sheer volume of photographs and videos coming directly out of the Strip was more than any editor could manage, which led to their global circulation.” According to Somji, some images do not reach audiences and succeed by chance, but as a result of decisions made in newsrooms and in platform policy meetings about what the public should see and how it should feel about it. He notes that images of death and destruction, with their powerful emotional charge, tend to receive greater attention, while images of defiance do not achieve the same level of circulation or psychological impact.
Somji does not see the creation of an iconic image as a purely visual process. In his view, editors, awards and exhibitions are the machinery that turns an image into an icon, and that machinery operates according to the policies of the institutions behind it. There are extraordinary photographs that never appear because they do not generate excitement or fit the political line of publication. What is celebrated as “the image of war”, he argues, is often simply the image that served someone’s interests.
Images of war are not received in the same way in every context. Geography and political context influence how victims are presented and how their images are understood, particularly victims from the Global South. Ultimately, Somji does not view an image as a fixed moment, but as a long journey that begins with the photographer and passes through agencies, editors, platforms, algorithms and audiences. At every stage, its value, meaning and chances of survival may change, until it either reaches, or fails to reach, the world’s visual memory.
This article was originally published in Arabic on 21/10/2026
