The series of incidents led to an escalation of clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians as the conflict intensified on May 11, 2021, night, as Israeli airstrikes began targeting Hamas offices in Gaza City and militants in Gaza fired rockets at the metropolis of Tel Aviv, the southern city of Ashkelon and Israel’s main airport, reported the New York Times.
At least 83 Palestinians, including 17 children and seven women, have been killed and more than 480 wounded in the violence between Israel and Hamas, said Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel on Wednesday charged forward with a fierce military offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing as many as 10 senior Hamas military figures and toppling a pair of high-rise towers housing Hamas facilities in a series of airstrikes. On 6th May 2021, clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police began over a planned Supreme Court of Israel decision regarding evictions of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The worst fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in seven years intensified on Tuesday night, as Israeli airstrikes began targeting Hamas offices in Gaza City and militants in Gaza fired rockets at the metropolis of Tel Aviv, the southern city of Ashkelon and Israel’s main airport.
US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reaffirm America’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza. Hamas, or Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement), a militant outfit that was co-founded by Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin from Ashkelon. Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, or Hamas for short, is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic militant organisation with a significant presence in the Gaza strip to the west of Israel. The organisation has two wings, Dawah, the social service wing, and Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the military wing.
Amid the conflict, a collage of images is being circulated to claim that a photojournalist got emotional while capturing images of Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, which was stormed by the Israeli security forces on 7th May. Palestinian worshippers had packed into the mosque on the final Friday of Ramadan and many stayed on to protest in support of Palestinians facing eviction from their homes on Israeli-occupied land claimed by Jewish settlers reported Al Jazeera on 7th May, 2021. Several Palestinians were injured after the Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque and dispersed worshippers elsewhere in East Jerusalem.
After conducting a reverse image search on the photographer’s image led to a Facebook post shared by the AFC Asian Cup in January 2019. The caption along with the image mentioned that the Iraqi photographer got emotional during the AFC Asia Cup when his team went down to Qatar 1-0 in the Round of 16. In an article published by Al Jazeera’s Arabic vertical in January 2019, which when translated to English mentioned that the man in the viral images is Iraqi Football Association photographer Muhammad Al-Azzawi. The same image went viral in 2019 as well when it was being claimed that the photographer cried after cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni got run out in World Cup semi-finals.
Meanwhile, the image of the mosque was captured on 7th May as Israeli forces entered the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The photo has been credited to Anadolu Agency’s Mostafa Alkharouf. The caption along with the image reads: “Israeli security forces are seen as they enter Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, intervene Muslim worshippers with stun grenade during prayer on 7 May 2021.”
Thus, set of images of an Iraqi photo journalist in tears after his football team’s exit at the hands of Qatar at the 2019 AFC Asian Cup is being shared falsely linking it to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict claiming that he cried while capturing photos of Israeli police storm the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem.
