A Palestinian mother grieves after her child was killed by Israeli military forces in the West Bank city of Jenin, 2002. (Photographer: Paolo Pellegrin)
Haunting, melancholy. The grieving mother is perhaps in mid-breath, eyes closed, as though she is summing up the courage to navigate the remainder of life without her angel. To her left, another woman’s face is shadowed and hidden. The grief has swallowed her whole, too. Even the tree in background looms like a plume of smoke after another air raid, a reminder of loss, a threat of more to come. Though there is little definition in the photograph, it is clearly a fleeting moment of vulnerability and emptiness, rushed, almost smeared. There is no denying the deep pain, the failures of humanity, transmitted through each and every blurred pixel.