Iconic child allegedly killed by IDF bomb was likely killed instead by Hamas rocket

Hamas claimed that this 4-year-old child was killed by an IDF bomb, but the IDF “vociferously denies” any bombing in the area where the child was killed. And the Telegraph’s reporting seems to agree that this child was killed by a Hamas rocket that misfired:

TELEGRAPH – But there were signs on Saturday that not all the Palestinian casualties have been the result of Israeli air strikes. The highly publicized death of four-year-old Mohammed Sadallah appeared to have been the result of a misfiring home-made rocket, not a bomb dropped by Israel.

The child’s death on Friday figured prominently in media coverage after Hisham Kandil, the Egyptian prime minister, was filmed lifting his dead body out of an ambulance. “The boy, the martyr, whose blood is still on my hands and clothes, is something that we cannot keep silent about,” he said, before promising to defend the Palestinian people.

But experts from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights who visited the site on Saturday said they believed that the explosion was caused by a Palestinian rocket.

Mediaite reports that CNN quickly picked up the story Saturday, saying the “small child became a symbol of civilian casualties”. Ugh. But even though the PCHR (Palestinian Centre for Human Rights) who tracks casualties did not list the child as being a victim of an Israeli attack, CNN has yet to issue a retraction.

I understand mistakes can happen and I’m not so quick to judge them for getting it wrong initially, despite the apparent bias, but they owe it to their viewers to admit they were duped. In the future they should always question claims like this, especially ones made by Hamas against Israel, and not let their bias get in the way of their reporting.

I know, wishful thinking.

(h/t: Honest Reporting)


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