Hamas' Favorite Fauxtographer and Crocodile Tears for Terrorists

Khalil Hamra, the AP "fauxtographer" who provided last week's picture of a "wounded" Gaza man next to three apparently healthy toddlers in a hospital, has snapped again.

The lead picture in dozens of newspapers today, including The Washington Post, showed a teary teen and this caption: "Palestinian relatives of Hamas militant Sami Lobad, who was killed in an Israeli missile strike, react during his funeral in Beit Lahiya. (Khalil Hamra-AP)

"Hamas militant" is newspeak for a terrorist. If Sami Lobad is identified as a dead "militant" killed in the last week, then he was either firing rockets at Israel's civilian population or was a bodyguard of master terrorist Nizar Rayyan, or was a Hamas fighter dedicated to Israel's destruction.

The world would be a better place if pictures of dead terrorists' mourners were not distributed by a major news agency or reproduced in Western newspapers.

Khalil Hamra's specialty appears to be photographing keeners at funerals. Here's another one of Hamra's shots from last month, with a portrait of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin looking down upon the scene:

Caption: Palestinian relatives of Hamas militant, Mohsen Al Qedra, react during his funeral in the family house in Khan Younis, Nov. 13, 2008. Al Qedra and three other Hamas militants were killed Wednesday as Israeli troops and Palestinian militants fought with missiles and mortars. (Khalil Hamra)

On November 12, the day before the funeral, Israeli paratroopers discovered Palestinian gunmen attempting to infiltrate into Israel from Gaza. Four of the gunmen, equipped with Kalashnikov guns and grenades, were killed. Presumably Al Qedra was one of them.

The AP photographer's online portfolio indicates that he also takes portraits of Palestinian babies and little children. Dead ones, of course. This blog will not reproduce the ghoulish and inciting pictures.

Other blog postings on Gaza:

Why Hasn't Israel Used Its Artillery in Gaza Yet?
Israel Is Also Facing Iran across the Gaza Border
Here Comes the Hamas Propaganda Attack

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The Photo Still Exists

Readers and bloggers confirm that the hospital picture by Khalil Hamra was removed from the Washington Post photo album. The photo of "Palestinian children and a man wounded in Israeli missile strikes are seen in the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City" can still be viewed here. Hatip: The Augean Stables.

Visit the Washington Post's website and search for the photographer Khalil Hamra. The picture shows up with this URL. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/12/27/PH2008122700591.html Note the "Washington Post" in the address.

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Update on the Gaza Propaganda War -- 6 PM EST

The Washington Post's website changed its photo essay and no longer shows Khalil Hamra's fake hospital shots. It even added a picture of damage done to an Israeli apartment by a Hamas Kassam rocket.

Meanwhile, the New York Times' slide show only shows the Palestinian side of the conflict. One caption goes so far as to describe "dozens of mutilated [Palestinian] bodies," thus suggesting another atrocity committed by Israel.

Note in the New York Times' photos how many of the dead or wounded are in uniform, but the Times' captions fail to make the point that they were combatants: "Palestinians gathered around bodies [in uniform]" or "Palestinians carried an injured man [wearing camouflage trousers]."

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Israel Attacks Hamas -- Here Comes the Hamas Propaganda Attack

As late as Friday, many Israeli citizens were pulling out their hair. Hamas rockets were falling like rain on Israeli civilians. What was Israel waiting for? Why was Israel allowing the delivery of supplies into Gaza? Why were Israeli hospitals treating Palestinians hurt by errant Hamas rockets?

Now we have some answers:

• The humanitarian assistance also served to lull Hamas into believing that Israel was going soft.


• The attack on the Jewish Sabbath was also unexpected by Hamas.


• Israeli intelligence was tracking, following, and marking the Hamas leadership, terrorist camps, and rocket crews for months. Hundreds of Hamas soldiers were caught in their bases. It can be assumed that aerial surveillance was able to retrace the steps of rocket crews to observe the locations of rocket warehouses and factories. As a result the Israeli Air Force attacks were remarkably accurate.

Now the Propaganda Counterattack

The blood libels against Israel have already begun. A British defense writer, Sean Rayment, blasted Israel in a Telegraph (UK) blog today, "The attack on the Gaza strip is proof that Israel is addicted to violence. Slaughtering 155 civilians, many of whom are women and children, can not be justified."

An absolute blood libel. No military force in the world is as careful as the Israeli Defense Forces in differentiating combatants from the civilians surrounding them. Note this report from Bloomberg: "Most of the Palestinian dead were members of the Hamas security forces, including police chief Tawfiq Jaber and the head of the organization’s Security and Protection Service, Ismail al-Jabary, said Taher Noono, a spokesman for Hamas. "

Pictures from Gaza indicate this fact. Note these photos of Palestinian security forces hit in their bases. These are uniformed combatants of a force that declared war on Israel, and they are very legitimate targets according to international law.

But now comes the "fauxtography" so prominent in the Lebanon war.

A Washington Post photo essay posted the two pictures above of the Palestinian combatants along with a picture of Palestinian wounded in a Gaza hospital. The picture was accompanied by this caption: Palestinian children and a man wounded in Israeli missile strikes are seen in the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008. Israeli warplanes demolished dozens of Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of simultaneous air strikes. Gaza medics said at least 145 people were killed and more than 310 wounded in the single deadliest day in Gaza fighting in recent memory. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) (Khalil Hamra - AP)

The children appear healthy. Would the photographer and caption writer, Khalil Hamra, fake a picture?

Yes.

Khalil Hamra is the credited AP photographer for many of the pictures of the International Solidarity Movement activities in Gaza, including those of Rachel Corrie. To recall, Rachel Corrie was an American activist who attempted to stop an Israeli bulldozer from destroying Gazan tunnels in 2003. Corrie slipped under the bulldozer, was killed and became a shaheed of the left. Hamra's pictures include this one of Corrie burning an American flag (left).

A search of Google images shows hundreds of Hamra's pictures of grieving Palestinians as well as Palestinian dead and wounded. His many pictures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters and military exercises suggest that Hamra could almost serve as Hamas' official photographer.

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