Tel Aviv, Israele, 12 October 2025
A right wing boy with Trump’s kippa in Hostage Square is waiting for the moment of the liberation of the last 20 hostages held captive since October 7, 2023 by Hamas into the Gaza Strip. The far right government of Benjamin Netanyahu is supporting in many ways the occupation and is supported without conditions by US president Donald Trump.
Copyright photo: © Gianluca Panella
There are photographs that need no caption — and at the same time carry so many layers of meaning that every detail becomes a statement.
This image is one of them.
A young boy looks straight into the lens. His gaze is steady, almost defiant. On his head, a kippa printed with the face of Donald Trump and the famous slogan Make America Great Again. The sacred and the political, stitched together into a single object, worn on the crown of the head.
The photograph was taken in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv in October 2025, in the charged, agonizing atmosphere of the wait for the liberation of the hostages still held in Gaza following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. A grief that became a political battleground. And that is precisely what makes this image so powerful and so unsettling. In a single frame, the photographer captures the collision of forces that defines this historical moment: faith and nationalism, trauma and ideology, religious and political identity.
Gianluca Panella is an independent photojournalist focusing on social reportage and long-term projects in crisis and conflict-affected areas. He has traveled and worked in the Balkans, Ukraine, Egypt, Haiti, the United States, Palestine, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan, South Sudan, and the Kiribati Islands.
His photographs appear in numerous Italian and international publications such as: Newsweek, The Guardian, Washington Post, The New York Times, The Observer, Die Zeit, Dier Spiegel, Republik, Die Welt, Corriere della Sera, Internazionale, Espresso, Panorama, and Sette.
With his work, he has received important awards such as: World Press Photo third Prize General news in 2014, the first edition of the Romano Cagnoni Award in 2019, the PHmuseum Grant in 2016, Amnesty International Press Awards in 2014, 2nd shortlisted, Monochrome Award in 2015, 5 honorable mentions International Photo Award, Leica Award 2013, Leica Talent 2012, among others.
He has recently covered the Ukraine frontline as a correspondent for La Stampa, Rai TG1, La7, and Il Fatto Quotidiano. After 7th October, he’s still working on the Israel-Palestine Issue.
