Gaza Burial: World Press Photo Of The Year 2012

Gaza City, Palestinian Territories

Two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and his older brother Muhammad were killed when their house was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike. Their father Fouad was also killed and their mother was put in intensive care. Fouad’s brothers carry his children to the mosque for the burial ceremony as his body is carried behind on a stretcher.”

Your humble servant would like to say at the outset that the deaths of the two children, Suhaib and Muhammad, were tragic. It is a terrible consequence of war that young children, the most vulnerable, are often killed.

Having said that, your humble servant would also like to say that the facts surrounding what happened to the Hijazi family–particularly as are related to their deaths–are unknown.

Here is what is known:

1. At approximately 7 pm on November 19, 2012, the Hijazi family was in their home in the northern Gaza city of Jabaliya.

2. There was a sudden explosion in the home. Fuad (father) and Amna (mother) were killed along with Suhaib (son, 2) and Mohammad (son, 4).  Four other sons and two daughters, ranging in age up to 19 years old, were badly injured–some critically.

According to one report from a “local media” source in Gaza:

An “Israeli F-16 dropped bombs” on the house.

According to another report from a different “local media” source in Gaza:

A solitary Israeli missile fired from an airplane or drone struck the house.

The same local media sources interestingly also included the following information in reference to Fuad Hijazi:  “Any ties to militant groups were not immediately known.”

And there was this cryptic piece of information: “Neighbors did not report hearing any missiles launched from the area of the Hijazi home before or after the strike.”

Your humble servant would like to point out that there were at least four possible causes of the explosion in the Hijazi home:

1. an Israeli bomb (possibly in connection to an impending missile launch or recently completed one), 2. an Israeli missile (possibly in connection to an impending missile launch or recently completed one), 3. an errant Hamas missile (click here for further discussion of a Hamas missile that killed a child in Gaza), 4. the explosion of a Hamas missile or weapon repository in the Hijazi house.

As for the IDF and IAF, there has never been any acknowledgement that an attack was carried out at the Hijazi home. When an IAF spokesman was asked on November 20th about the attacks carried out against Hamas missile launchers and weapons storage facilities on the 19th, the spokesman responded: “The sites that were targeted have been positively identified by precise intelligence over the course of months.”

So what is your humble servant’s point? Simply that as tragic as the photograph is–its description is nothing more than propaganda perpetrated by Hamas and worldpress.org and cannot be taken at face value.

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