The picture is of a 5-year-old boy named Ido Avigal who died as a result of a Hamas missile strike in Sderot in 2021.
At the United Nations in Geneva today, an Israeli delegation strongly criticized the Palestinian delegation for falsely representing the image of an Israeli boy killed by a Hamas rocket as an Arab child who died as the result of an IDF operation.
The picture is actually of a 5-year-old boy named Ido Avigal who died as a result of a Hamas missile strike in Sderot in 2021.
The Israeli delegation wrote in a harsh statement, “Hamas killed Ido. But today, the Palestinian Delegation presented an exhibition at UN Geneva, which included Ido as a Palestinian child supposedly killed by Israel in Gaza. This is despicable.”
The Israeli delegation demanded that UN Geneva Director-General Tatiana Valovaya “to immediately remove this exhibition, which spreads misinformation and is part of a propaganda campaign.”
Ido Avigal’s picture has been misused on various occasions by Palestinian groups claiming he was an Arab casualty of the IDF.
MK Ahmed Tibi posted the photo and the X social media platform.
In response, Ido’s mother Shani Avigal confronted Ahmed Tibi on X and wrote:
“Hey Ahmad, what’s up? Do you hear me? It’s totally fine to take all sorts of kids, put them in one photo, and tell the world that the IDF killed them, but is there a chance that you could take the photo of my child off there?”
She continued, “I am pretty sure Hamas killed him, and injured my daughter, and my nephews, and myself. But I’m not a kid, so whatever. Ah, yeah. They fired at a home!”
The UN has long been criticized for bias by Israeli politicians and organizations.
Two-hundred and fifty Israelis displaced by the October 7th massacre wrote a letter complaining to the UN that their plight had been ignored:
“Nothing has been done to fulfill the UNHCR’s principle of ‘leaving no-one behind’ or ‘build[ing] effective approaches to resilience’ and recovery for Israeli IDPs (internally displaced individuals) who bore witness to Hamas atrocities,” read the missive, an initiative of Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center.
“Such a distinction is completely unacceptable and disregards those who have lost everything to Hamas terror and face an uncertain future,” they charged, adding, “We can only draw the damning conclusion that you are ignoring the circumstances, danger and trauma of the Israelis because they are Jews and not Muslim Gazans.”
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