Story behind image of dead Palestinian baby highlights photographer challenges
Majed Hamdan/AP -
Jihad Masharawi weeps while he holds the body of his 11-month
old son Ahmad, at Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Nov. 14, 2012.
The image of a Palestinian man, his head thrown back in grief as he cradled the shrouded body of his infant son, set off a fierce war of words between Israeli and Palestinian factions when newspapers and Web sites published it in November. Palestinian supporters saw the photo, taken by an Associated Press photographer, as evidence of the Israeli military’s aggression against Palestinian civilians; Israel’s supporters viewed it as a carefully orchestrated bit of propaganda designed to engender sympathy for Palestinians during the brief Gaza-Israeli conflict.
It turns out that it was quite likely neither one. The story
behind the photograph suggests the continuing challenges journalists
face in sorting out truth and fiction amid the chaos of a war zone,
especially one in the Middle East.
Nearly four months after the
image was circulated worldwide, a U.N. commission has concluded that
Israel was not directly responsible for the child’s death. The baby
apparently was killed by a Palestinian rocket that fell on his family’s
house in Gaza, it said. The rocket, fired by militants in Gaza, was one
of hundreds aimed at Israelis during the eight-day conflict.
The
one-line conclusion by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights about was a surprise twist in the photo’s emotion-laden
history. The photo evoked such a strong reaction that it became a
lightning rod for perceptions about the hostilities.
Many readers
were outraged that the image was featured prominently in The Washington
Post, which played it across four columns atop its front page on Nov.
15. Some asked why the paper didn’t treat similarly photos of Israelis
huddled in shelters to escape Palestinian rocket fire.
The Post’s
caption on the photo said the child died “after an Israeli airstrike in
Gaza City,” which implied Israeli culpability. In light of the U.N.
report, the paper said it would publish an editor’s note in Wednesday’s
editions along with the photo that clarifies the circumstances
surrounding it. The note reads, in part, that the U.N. report “has now
cast doubt” on Israel’s involvement.
The Associated Press on
Tuesday issued a correction for its caption for the photo. It wrote, “An
errant Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike, likely killed the
child during fighting in the Hamas-ruled territory last November, a U.N.
report indicated, challenging the widely believed story behind the
image which became a symbol of what Palestinians said was Israeli
aggression.”
The episode suggests “the fog of war and the fog of
journalism” during a war, said Ken Light, a professor who oversees the
photojournalism program at the University of California at Berkeley’s
Graduate School of Journalism. News photographers are usually diligent
about ensuring that they’ve placed their images in the proper context,
he said, but in the middle of armed conflict, “a lot can get through the
cracks. . . . A picture is worth a thousand words, but you don’t always know the circumstances that led up to making the picture.”
Michael
Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said the issue is
further complicated by Hamas and Hezbollah, the Islamist groups that
oppose Israel in Gaza and southern Lebanon, respectively.
“You
have to understand that the media is as much of a battlefield for them
as anything going on” on the ground, he said. “You are dealing with
terrorist organizations that will exploit and manipulate the media. They
know how the Western press works and how to use it to their advantage.”
Both
organizations, Oren said, use civilian deaths to turn public opinion
against Israel, even if those deaths occur under ambiguous
circumstances. This should make any news organization wary about
attributing particular casualties.
The photo would not have been
as newsworthy to Western media organizations if the caption had said it
was unclear how the baby had died, said Eric Rozenman, Washington
director for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a watchdog group. That’s because the image played into preconceived notions about Israel’s military might.
The
lesson for the news media is to use caution in reporting on the
Arab-Israeli conflict Rozenman said. “If you really didn’t know the
circumstances for the information in a [caption], then it ought to have a
flag on it” saying as much, he added.
After interviewing
witnesses, the U.N. office concluded that the damage to the child’s Gaza
home was inconsistent with an Israeli airstrike. It said that the
infant was “killed by what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket.” A
spokesman for the organization told the AP that he couldn’t
“unequivocally” blame Palestinian sources, but an investigation showed
that there had been Palestinian rocket fire near the child’s home at the
time he was killed.
The child’s father was a journalist employed by the BBC.
Despite
the finding, the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said it
still holds Israel responsible for the baby’s death, according to the
AP.