Cover Story

How we chose this week’s image

Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief

For our second cover on the war between Israel and Hamas, we began by thinking about the impending ground offensive. But as the week went on, our choices were buffeted by news—first the announcement of President Joe Biden’s visit to the region and then, on Tuesday evening, the lethal blast at Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza. We needed a cover that could withstand the onrush of events.

This is where we were on Monday evening, before the news. The Israeli tank is poised for battle, but the soldier has his back to the enemy. He is waiting for the order to advance. A mournful sun is setting behind him and his head is bowed. This is not a war of choice, but of grim necessity.

Our debate about this image—was it too picturesque and contemplative?—was rendered moot by the announcement that Mr Biden was to fly into Israel on Air Force One. The Israeli army would not invade Gaza while he was in the country.

The president’s visit was a geopolitical moment. As well as signalling grief and support for Israel, it brought into focus how much this crisis matters to the Middle East and to America. Our thoughts turned to a geopolitical cover.

This collage signals our fear that war between Israel and Hamas will shake the Middle East and America. Mr Biden is there, as is Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister tucked beneath the smoking ruins of Gaza. At the top is Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, the supreme leader of Iran. For years his country has financed, armed and trained proxies such as Hamas. At this point in the conflict, it is the big winner.

Yet this collage is too cool. The soundtrack to the war is a relentless drumbeat of human suffering and it is getting louder. After the hospital blast, this cover would not work.

Even this moving shot of Mr Biden comforting Mr Netanyahu at Ben Gurion airport was wrong. Whether we ran it straight or against the colours of the Israeli flag, the pomp of a presidential visit was too distant from the explosion at Ahli Arab.

This image is tragic on two levels. First, it is a portrait of suffering. A weeping mother cradles her daughter, who is staring into empty space. They are covered in dust and grime from the explosion. A panel behind them is smeared in blood.

It also illustrates the ingrained mistrust that poisons the Middle East. Hamas claimed that 500 had died in the blast, and that it was an outrage committed by Israel. And that is how the Arab world saw it. In fact, Western intelligence officials have put the number as much as 50-90% lower. There is also strong evidence that the cause was a failed Palestinian rocket fired nearby from inside Gaza.

Something that looks like the mass killing of Palestinians by Palestinians ought to have redoubled Arab leaders’ efforts to safeguard Gaza’s civilians and spurred them on to create a regional plan for a better Palestinian future. But they dared not test their people’s anger at Israel, despite the rocket’s origins. And so a failure of leadership allowed Hamas to deepen the hatred and add to the grievances.

We might have chosen this photograph, but it was widely used by other news organisations. We need something fresh.

We thought about this doctor. When you know that he is from Ahli Arab, you can sense his exhaustion and despair. The wall to his left is spattered in blood. Blood is pooled by his feet.

However, without that context, you see a man sitting outside a hut. Looking obliquely at a well-reported disaster can be powerful. This, however, is too oblique.

Here is a different photograph of the same little girl, this time gazing beseechingly into the camera. We chose the title “Where will this end?”. Those words can be taken literally, in the sense that they ask about the war’s broad consequences. Set above this picture, they also pose a different, more despairing question on the little girl’s behalf: “What will become of me?”