BBC Journo Spreads Photo of Syrian Child Depicted as Gaza Victim

A BBC reporter helped spread a photo of a child supposedly injured by an Israeli attack on Gaza. In reality, the photo is three weeks old and was taken in Syria.

The photo of a wounded Syrian child was posted here on October 28th. Early Monday morning, a Palestinian journalist named Hazem Balousha tweeted the photo with the misleading description “Pain in #Gaza.” It was retweeted more than 90 times, including by BBC Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison. Donnison added the word “Heartbreaking” and sent it to his 8,000 followers.

After the error was pointed out, Donnison apologized, saying, “A photo I retweeted from another journo yesterday showing childreninjured was NOT in Gaza as I said but apparently from Syria. Apologies.” The original tweet by Mr. Balousha appears to have been deleted.

BBC has already been caught once in the past week running fake footage of supposedly injured Gazans. In an incident noted last Thursday, a man is shown being carried by a group of men. He appears to be wounded. But moments later, the same man can be seen walking around — apparently nothing wrong with him.

CNN and the AP also ran an image of a 4-year-old killed in the conflict, strongly implying he died in an Israeli airstrike. However, Israel carried out no strikes the day the child died. According to the those who examined the site, the blast that killed the little boy was the result of a “Palestinian rocket,” not an Israeli bomb.