A photo of Gazans taking two children and their father killed in an Israeli air strike for burial has won the 2013 World Press Photo award for Swedish photographer Paul Hansen, judges said Friday.
The staff shooter for the Dagens Nyheter daily took the image of the funeral procession carrying carrying two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her three-year-old brother Muhammad down an alley in Gaza City on November 20, 2012.
"The strength of the pictures lies in the way it contrasts the anger and sorrow of the adults with the innocence of the children," said Mayu Mohanna, jury member from Peru. "It's a picture I will not forget."
The children's father Fouad was also killed in the air strike and their mother was put in intensive care.
AFP photographers Fabio Bucciarelli from Italy and Javier Manzano from the US won second and third prize in the Spot News category respectively with a series of photographs taken in Syria's battle-scarred Aleppo.
One of Bucciarelli's pictures shows a Free Syrian Army fighter standing on a rooftop preparing to fire a rocket-propelled grenade, while one of Manzano's photos shows rebel fighters in a dark room pierced by sunlight streaming in through bullet holes.
This year's competition saw judges sift through 103,481 photographs submitted by 5,666 photographers of 124 nationalities.