Our Picture Editors select the best news photographs from South Africa and worldwide to give you a visual snapshot of the day's events.
A child plays football against the setting sun, at a beach in the Kerobokan district of Indonesia’s resort island Bali on December 19, 2023. (Photo by David GANNON / AFP)
The All Saints Cathedral also known as Patthar Girjaghar or the Stone Church, is illuminated ahead of Christmas festivities in Prayagraj on December 19, 2023. (Photo by Sanjay KANOJIA / AFP)A picture taken from Rafah shows smoke billowing over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on December 19, 2023, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (Photo by SAID KHATIB / AFP)Paris Saint Germain’s Polish goalkeeper #01 Kararzyna Kiedrzynek reacts during the UEFA Women’s Champions League Group C football match between Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and AS Roma at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, on December 14, 2023. (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP)Afghan children watch a man play cricket, at a field in the Fayzabad district of Badakhshan province on December 19, 2023. (Photo by OMER ABRAR / AFP)A worker repairs the Cathedral of the Transfiguration damaged as a result of Russian missile strike on July 23, 2023, in Odessa on December 18, 2023, amid Russian invasion in Ukraine. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov / AFP)A man dressed in Santa Claus costume waves to a girl out of the window as he visits Germans Trias Hospital in Badalona, Barcelona, Spain, 19 December 2023. Santa Claus arrived the hospital using a zipline. EPA-EFE/Quique GarciaWorshippers pray in the Pauline Chapel, below the Salus populi romani Byzantine icon, inside the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the four papal basilicas in Rome, on December 19, 2023. – Pope Francis has chosen to be buried not in St Peter’s Basilica alongside his immediate predecessors but in a basilica in Rome, he revealed in an interview broadcast on December 13, 2023. “The place is already prepared. I want to be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore,” the pontiff, who turns 87 this weekend, told Mexican broadcaster Televisa’s N+ streaming service. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)Displaced people fleeing from Wad Madani in Sudan’s Jazira state arrive in Gedaref in the country’s east on December 19, 2023. – The war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed 12,190 people, according to conservative estimates by the Armed Conflict Locations and Events Data project. It has displaced 5.4 million people inside the country, according to the UN, and sent over 1.3 million fleeing abroad. (Photo by AFP)A sits near the Western Wall, the last remaining vestige of the Second Temple which is considered the holiest site where Jews can pray, in Jerusalem’s Old City on December 19, 2023, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)A person buys Christmas lottery tickets to a street vendor outside the popular lottery outlet ‘Dona Manolita’ on December 18, 2023 in central Madrid. – Spanish citizens and tourists spend hours in a queue to obtain a ticket that will be winner number of the first prize of Spain’s Christmas lottery “El Gordo” (the Fat One). (Photo by Thomas COEX / AFP)In this pool photograph distributed by Russia’s state agency Sputnik, Russian President Vladimir Putin awards a serviceman after an expanded meeting of the Russian Defence Ministry Board at the National Defence Control Centre in Moscow on December 19, 2023. (Photo by Mikhail KLIMENTYEV / POOL / AFP)US Mikaela Shiffrin competes in the Women’s Super G during the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup event in Val-d’Isere, in the French Alps, on December 17, 2023. (Photo by Jeff PACHOUD / AFP)A Palestinian old man listens to his radio in a refugee camp in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 17, 2023, amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas. – In the Gaza Strip, it is now impossible to plug in computers or television sets, recharge phones or access the internet without generators or solar panels, a luxury few Gazans can afford. But to keep up with the news, there’s always the battery-powered radio. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)Marine One (R) with US President Joe Biden departs Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, on December 19, 2023, as he returns to the White House. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
