WaPo dragged for ‘disgraceful’ front page showing mourners at 11-year-old’s funeral paired with Israeli airstrike headline
The Washington Post is being mocked online for its perplexing Monday front page photo showing mourners at the funeral of an 11-year-old girl killed by a Hezbollah rocket strike, which the paper paired with a headline about Israeli airstrikes.
“Israel hits its targets in Lebanon,” the large-type front-page headline announces, positioned directly under a photo of anguished family members mourning over the coffin of Alma Ayman Fakhr al-Din, 11, one of the 12 kids killed by a Hezbollah rocket strike on a soccer field in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights.
Another 40 people were injured in the Saturday strike, making it the deadliest attack against Israel since the Oct. 7 massacre that sparked the war in Gaza.
“That’s an image of a funeral of a girl KILLED IN ISRAEL BY A HEZBOLLAH ROCKET FROM LEBANON, so why is the Washington Post headline backwards?” former Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy asked incredulously on X in a post including a screenshot of the paper’s front page.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) took a swipe at the WaPo in its own post on X, showing the infamous front page and writing, “You can see the grieving family members burying children murdered by Hezbollah in the Madjal Shams massacre. If by chance you understood anything else from their headline, you might not be the problem.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) also posted the puzzling front page on X, the pro-Israel Democrat wondering about the decision to present the news the way the paper did.
“The front-page image of today’s Washington Post is that of a child murdered by Hezbollah,” the congressman wrote on his personal account in a post that garnered more than 200,000 views.
“Yet the front-page headline — ‘Israel Hits Targets in Lebanon’ — portrays Israel, not Hezbollah, as the aggressor.”
Other X users roasted the DC-based daily for its headline choice, calling it things like “disgraceful” and “outrageous.”
One user who identifies himself as a rabbi said, “This shameful distortion of events plays directly into the strategy of the terrorist enemies of Israel.”
Another blasted the Jeff Bezos-owned paper as being “a propaganda arm of Hamas since October.”
After Saturday’s massacre, Israeli leadership warned there would be retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah. It later delivered on the promise — with the IDF striking several terror targets deep inside southern Lebanon.
However, some critics said the return strike — which the IDF said hit several weapons caches and terror infrastructure belonging to the Iran-backed terror group — didn’t go far enough, given the horrific attack on the soccer field.
