THE FOG of War

How can we trust the images we see from the Israel-Hamas conflict?

- Fred Ritchin

FOR THOSE OF us on the outside, the “fog of war” is beginning to resemble a total eclipse of the sun.

With the contraction of print publications, the front pages of newspapers and the covers of news magazines have essentially disappeared, no longer providing a unifying focus. With a multitude of factions weaponizing media, using fake or misleading imagery in a parallel media war, viewers have been left largely in the dark, not knowing with whom to empathize, their tribal loyalties reinforced. And now, with mounting skepticism fueled by such manipulations, the photographs and videos that actually depict the conflict between Hamas and Israel are increasingly considered suspect.

As a result, the BBC can publish an article on how two four-year-old boys, Omer and Omar, one Israeli and one Palestinian, were both killed in the early days of the war, their deaths exploited in a social media battle. Some have argued that it is not Omar who has been depicted but a doll; others, that Omer and his sisters did not die but are “crisis actors.” Omar’s mother, who confirmed to the BBC that her son had been killed by an air strike, has been forced to protect her child’s memory from this grotesque accusation: “They have no right to say he is a doll.” A friend of Omer’s family, all five of whom were reportedly massacred, told the BBC, “To deal with their death is hard enough, and all these comments make it even worse.”