The Washington Post has been mocked online for a puzzling photo it ran on its front page on Monday that linked a headline about Israeli airstrikes with a picture of mourners attending the funeral of an 11-year-old girl killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack.
“Israel Attacks Lebanese Targets,” read the front-page headline beneath a photo of a grieving family at the coffin of Alma Ayman Fakhr al-Din, 11, one of 12 children killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack on a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
A further 40 people were wounded in Saturday’s attack, making it the deadliest attack against Israel since the October 7 massacre that sparked the war in Gaza.
“This is a photo of the funeral of a girl killed in Israel by a Hezbollah rocket fired from Lebanon, so why is the Washington Post’s headline upside down?” former Israeli government spokesman Eilon Levy posted incredulously to X, along with a screenshot of the paper’s front page.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) criticized the Washington Post for publishing its infamous front page, which read, “We see grieving families burying their children murdered by Hezbollah in the Majar Shams massacre. If you take anything else from their headline, you might not be the problem.”
New York Congressman Ritchie Torres also published a puzzling front page in X, where, as a pro-Israel Democrat, he questioned the paper’s decision to publish the news in this way.
“The front page of the Washington Post today is of children murdered by Hezbollah,” the congressman wrote on his account, which has been viewed more than 200,000 times.
“Yet the front-page headline ‘Israel Attacks Lebanese Targets’ portrays Israel, not Hezbollah, as the aggressor.”
Other X users slammed the Washington-based daily paper’s choice of headline, calling it “shameful” and “outrageous.”
“This shameful distortion of events is directly related to the strategy of Israel’s terrorist enemies,” said one user who identified himself as a rabbi.
Another slammed the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper for “becoming a Hamas propaganda organ since October.”
After Saturday’s massacre, Israeli leaders warned of retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah. The Israel Defense Forces then made good on their promise, striking several terror sites deep inside southern Lebanon.
But some critics say that the return strikes, which the IDF said hit weapons depots belonging to Iran-backed terror groups and several terror facilities, were not enough given the horrific attack on the soccer field.
Hezbollah has denied allegations that it was behind the missile attacks on the Golan Heights.
The Washington Post did not respond to a request for comment Monday morning.
