American Photography 38 Winners

Palestinian families huddle during a candlelight vigil on May 25, 2021, that condemned the killing of children and civilians, over the rubble of homes destroyed by an Israeli military strike in Gaza City. Gaza in Ruins. May 2021. In this rubble, the houses of three families were hit by the airstrike on the dawn of the first day of Eid al-Fitr, on May 13. Abdul Rahim Mohammed Madhoun, 63, and his wife Haijar Abu Sharkh al-Madhoun, 60, and the wife, husband and four children of the al-Tanani family all were killed; seven members of the Al-Malfouh family were rescued. In total, 248 Palestinians were killed during this escalation, including 66 children. Egyptian mediators helped broker the cease-fire after 11 days of fighting between Israel and Gaza military factions. Egypt pledged to provide $500 million in aid to Gaza to contribute to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

Journalists from the Etilaat Roz newspaper, Nemat Naqdi, 28, left and Taqi Daryabi, 22, undress to show their wounds caused by beatings from Taliban fighters in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sept. 8, 2021. The Fall of Afghanistan. September 2021. The two were tortured while in custody after being arrested for filming a rally for women’s rights. The demonstrations came just one day after the Taliban revealed an all-male interim government made up of stalwarts with zero representation for women or ethnic minority groups – their promise of a more tolerant rule clearly broken. “They didn’t let me resist,” Daryabi said of the brutality he and his colleague suffered. He said he was shoved to the ground, tortured and beaten unconscious. He was taken to a yard and water was poured on him. He was still there when they brought Naqdi. “We were shouting that we are journalists. But they didn’t care,” Naqdi said. “I thought they were going to kill me…They kept on ridiculing us, asking if we were filming them.”

A military transport plane flies over relatives and neighbors of the Ahmadi family as they gather around an incinerated husk of a vehicle destroyed by a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Fall of Afghanistan. August 2021. In August, life came to a standstill as the Taliban offensive reached the gates of the Afghan capital, sending it into a panic. President Ashraf Ghani escaped; American-backed Afghan forces pulled back. The Taliban swiftly took over a nation that had changed much since it first ruled two decades ago. Jarring, violent scenes followed, marking a tragic coda to a messy and controversial 20-year occupation. The U.S. was ending its longest war.

A child cries as a man carries a bloodied child on a road leading to Kabul’s airport. The Fall of Afghanistan. August 2021. Others help a wounded woman on the ground in a scene of chaos as the Taliban secured its grip on the capital while tens of thousands of Afghans raced to the airport, hoping to be evacuated on U.S. military transport planes. Taliban fighters used gunfire, whips, sticks and sharp objects to violently rebuff thousands of Afghans on Aug. 17, 2021. At least a half dozen were wounded, including the woman and child.

Taliban fighters pray next to young Afghans outside a local mosque for evening prayers in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 26, 2021. The Fall of Afghanistan. August 2021. In its nearly two-decade fight with the U.S., the Taliban worked at every turn to undermine the Afghan government, deriding its leaders as corrupt stooges whose forces could never protect citizens from the group’s ferocious attacks. But the Taliban is now in charge, and with power comes a daunting challenge: convincing Afghans — many of them with bitter memories of the last time the fundamentalist group ran the country — that it can govern and police as well as it can fight.

Mourners at a mass funeral look up and weep as the roar of jet engines drown out their wails in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 30, 2021. The Fall of Afghanistan. August 2021. Fighter jets circled the hilltop cemetery where members of the Ahmadi family were burying 10 of their own – seven of them children – all victims of a U.S. drone strike. A full day before the U.S. military withdrawal approached its conclusion, death continued to haunt the war-torn country. The airstrike came in the wake of an airport bombing on Aug. 26 carried out by ISIS-K militants. The United States military claimed initially that it was targeting an alleged Islamic extremist who posed the threat of carrying out a similar attack. A month later, it reversed its position, but the Pentagon decided no American troops would be punished. Left to grieve and wonder, Emal Ahmadi could not understand how it could be that a family could die and no one be held accountable.