Jewish rabbi breaks down in tears as he votes for his favorites in Anadolu's Photos of the Year competition

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) – Haim Sofer, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi in the UK, cried while voting for his favorites in the Gaza: Evidence category of Anadolu's Photos of the Year competition.

Sofer, a member of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta movement, voted for Ashraf Amra's photograph titled The cry out, in which a woman mourns during a funeral ceremony in Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip.

The rabbi said he selected this photo because this represents a Palestinian mother who lost her child, "her most precious thing in her life."

"That's the most painful thing to see," said Sofer who shed tears while looking at photos in the Gaza: Evidence category, which was opened as one of the special sections by Türkiye's leading global news agency Anadolu.

In this context, 25 photographs that have been recorded in history as evidence of Israeli forces' attacks that constitute "war crimes" can be voted on in the category titled Gaza: Evidence.

"She lost their house, lost the most precious thing in the world, that's the children, the future of the Palestinian people, so she lost her future," the rabbi added.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 22,438 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,614 others injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

- Other categories

Along with, "Gaza: Evidence," which includes 25 photographs, this year’s participants can also vote in another special category called Earthquake: Hope.

Twenty-two photographs focusing on stories of hope during the Feb. 6 earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaras, which affected 11 provinces in Türkiye and was described as the "disaster of the century," will be put to vote under the title Earthquake: Hope.

There are also 45 outstanding photographs in the main categories environment and life, 30 in the news category, and 25 in the sports category.

In addition to Türkiye, photographs selected by Anadolu photo editors from over 1 million frames published from all over the world, from the US to Pakistan, Ukraine to the Arctic Ocean, Palestine to Scotland, Afghanistan to Peru, are in Turkish and will be voted on globally with English subtitles.

Participants in the voting will be able to vote for as many photos as they want.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people vote, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ministers, politicians, bureaucrats, athletes, artists, and people from all walks of life.

The voting, which drew 416,746 votes last year, will be open until January 31, 2024, at 17:00 Turkish time on the website yilinkareleri.aa.com.tr.​​​​​​​