Jihad poses for the cameras [updated]

According to the caption, the Yahoo! News photo of the day depicts Jihad Masharawi weeping while he holds the body of his 11-month old son Ahmad, at Shifa hospital following an Israeli air strike on their family house, in Gaza City, Wednesday, November 14, 2012. According to the The Daily Mail, which has published a virtual time series featuring Jihad from various news services, Masharawi is the BBC Arabic picture editor.

The Daily Mail reports that “the attack struck an apartment building injuring two other people…” What happened to the “family house”? According to the Daily Mail, the boy’s name was Omar. What happened to Ahmad? I guess it’s the fog of war.

Is this for real? Maybe so. If so, I regret asking the question. In researching “He didn’t give at the office,” however, I acquired a healthy skepticism of the work of news service photographers employed in Gaza. My skepticism may well be unwarranted in this case, but I wonder how Jihad remained untouched in the attack on the family house/apartment building that killed Ahmad/Omar.

Who else was injured? What else was in the family house/apartment building or its vicinity? What does the IDF say? If it is for real, the story leaves a lot of questions open.

UPDATE: Jihad’s BBC colleague Paul Danahar has a Twitter feed that lends support to the story as presented by the media. It still leaves open questions regarding what happened, but I want to bring Danahar’s contribution to your attention. Please check it out.

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