Mahmoud Ajjour has rightly realised that life is a struggle at the age of 10. He still remembers the terrible day when he lost his arms in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in March 2024. A sudden attack changed his life forever. Mahmoud had to arrive in Doha, leaving his homeland. The young Palestinian boy, who has been receiving treatment in Qatar, is trying his best to return to a normal life. Still, he asks: How do I live like this?

An Israeli airstrike completely destroyed Mahmoud’s house in Gaza’s Old City in 2024. Although he survived the attack, the young boy received a serious injury and lost both of his arms. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mahmoud recently said that he did not realise he was wounded. “I thought I had simply fallen. But I found myself on the ground, exhausted and wondering what had happened. In reality, one arm flew off, while the other fell right beside me,” stressed Mahmoud. He recalled: “My mother then told me that I lost my arms. I started crying. I was very sad, and my mental state was very bad.” Meanwhile, an image of Mahmoud, clicked by Samar Abu Elouf for the New York Times, recently won the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year award.

The treatment period was not quite pleasant for Mahmoud either as Gaza hospitals lacked proper medical equipment and medicines, including anaesthesia, at that time. He underwent surgery in such a situation. The little boy told Al Jazeera: “They (doctors) performed surgery on me while I was awake. I couldn’t bear the pain; I was screaming very loud. My voice filled the hallways.” According to the UN Children’s Fund, more than 10 children have lost one or both of their legs each day since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its ongoing genocide in Gaza. The number has crossed 1,000. In December 2024, UN Secretary-General António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres stressed: “Gaza now has the highest number of children amputees per capita anywhere in the world – many losing limbs and undergoing surgeries without even anaesthesia.”

Mahmoud has started learning everything anew… to write, play games on his phone and dress himself using his feet. Now, he has to make efforts to do all the work that he used to do easily with both hands. Of course, he needs a special assistance for most daily activities. Mahmoud still remembers that he used to go to the market to buy vegetables and foods. “Now, everything is difficult, including feeding myself, helping myself to the bathroom… but I try my best. I manage my life like this. I make it work,” he stated.

The Palestinian boy still believes that he can return to Gaza and help rebuild the devastated enclave. He has expressed hope that the world could “end the war on Gaza”, stating: “We want to live on our land. We don’t want the Israelis to take it. People are dying there (in Gaza). And my home was bombed. How could I live like this?”

The Israeli atrocities in Gaza have claimed more than 51,000 lives and wounded at least 116,505 since October 7, 2023. The Israel-Hamas War has also forcibly displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million strong population, ravaged most of the land, damaged basic infrastructure and dismantled the healthcare system. Joumana El Zein Khoury, the Executive Director of World Press Photo, has claimed that the award-winning image of Mahmoud speaks a lot. “This is a quiet photo that speaks loudly. It tells the story of one boy, but also of a wider war that will have an impact for generations,” he said.

The World Press Photo, which is concerned about Mahmoud’s future, has mentioned in a statement that the photo “depicts the dehumanisation of a region, and about the relentless targeting of journalists in Gaza alongside the continued denial of access to international reporters seeking to expose the realities of this war”. It added: “Mahmoud’s dream is simple: He wants to get prosthetics and live his life as any other child. Children are disproportionately impacted by the war.”

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das