Photo of Gazan funeral procession is top winner of international contest

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"Judges for the 2013 World Press Photo Contest have awarded the Photo of the Year to Swedish photojournalist Paul Hansen for his photograph of a Gazan funeral procession taken during Operation Pillar of Cloud last November. The award is considered one of the most prestigious photojournalism honors in the world.

The procession was for Fouad Hijazi and his two children Sohaib, 2, and Muhamad, 4, killed by an Israeli airstrike November 19, 2012.

As the Palestine Center's Yousef Munayyer notes, the backstory to this photo is chronicled in the latest Human Rights Watch report on alleged Israeli war crimes committed during the latest assault on Gaza. The human rights group notes that "field investigations of these attacks"--including the bombing of the Hijazi home-- "found no evidence of Palestinian fighters, weaponry, or other apparent military objectives at the time of the attack. Individuals who deliberately order or take part in attacks targeting civilians or civilian objects are responsible for war crimes." Here's more from Human Rights Watch on the incident:

On November 19 at around 7:30 p.m., a single munition struck the house of the Hijazi family in Block 8 of the Jabalya refugee camp. The small, two-story cinderblock house was mostly demolished while 10 family members were inside. The strike killed Fouad Hijazi, a 46-year-old janitor at the Hamad secondary school, along with two of his children, Mohamed, 4, and Sohaib, 2. His wife, Amna, was wounded, as were three of their sons and a daughter.