Israeli Civilians Under Fire; Hamas Fakes Casualties on Twitter

Israeli Civilians Under Fire; Hamas Fakes Casualties on Twitter
Joel B. Pollak

Israel and Hamas are not only trading fire; they’re trading tweets. Shortly after the Israel Defense Force (IDF) launched Operation Pillar of Cloud, targeting Hamas terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, the two sides fought a pitched battle on Twitter, as well, with Hamas’s military wing, the @Alqassambrigade, taunting the @IDFspokesperson. Just as terrorists have frequently faked civilian casualties to stir global outrage against Israel, Hamas has tweeted fake pictures of dead children–and has been called out by its own sympathizers.

At 11:29 p.m. local time, Hamas tweeted a photograph of a young boy bleeding in his father’s arms, apparently dead. Syrian exile Razzan Saffour, who lives in Britain and sympathizes with the Palestinian cause, responded: 

She later tweeted an explanatory note to emphasize that she supports Hamas regardless of the fakery:

Aside from passing off civilian casualties caused by its former Syrian sponsors as Israeli atrocities, Hamas’s @Alqassambrigade account spent the day falsifying its military activities, claiming that Hamas was shelling military targets, when in fact most of the rockets from the Gaza Strip were aimed at Israel’s civilian population.

The IDF distributed–but did not tweet–photographs of civilian casualties in Israel due to Hamas rockets. The photograph at top is one of them. 

That is what a real civilian casualty looks like. That is why Israel is at war.

Update: Further confirmation: the photograph appeared on October 16, 2012 on the UK Guardian website in a montage of images from the Syrian conflict. The image was taken at the Dar al Shifa Hospital in Aleppo, Syria:

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