Time Magazine has named the best photos of 2012 and the first one is an image from Israel’s war against Gaza last month featuring a surviving member of the massacred Dalou family tenderly kissing the limb of a dead relative. I’ve also included the back story offered by the photographer:
Covering a conflict has never been a pleasure, but since I became a father a year ago, war has become even harder to cover. This day was particularly complicated; 11 members of the Daloo family had been killed when an Israeli missile struck the family’s two-story home in Gaza City, and I spent most of the day taking pictures of bodies being pulled out from beneath the rubble. I took this picture at the end of the day. The morgue was crowded and very noisy. Behind me, a few journalists were filming and taking pictures of four dead children of the Daloo family. In front of me, a group of men that had just stormed into the room were facing the cruel reality of discovering the dead body of a loved one. Everything was happening very fast, but I remember seeing a teardrop falling over the inert hand and whispering “ma’a salama” (goodbye in Arabic). I’ve always thought that war brings out the best and the worst in humans. To me, this was a sad and tender moment of love.
I hope that images such as this will ensure there will eventually be some measure of justice not just for the victims of this family, but for all Palestinian victims of injustice in this conflict. I also believe the sooner their killers are held accountable the sooner Israeli victims’ claims will be addressed as well.
@ Richard
This is not a photo of the Al-Dalou-family though it was taken the day they were killed and at the same morgue.
The hand of the dead one is that of a grown-up male and only one of the 10 members of the al-Dalou family killed that day was a grown-up male, Muhammad al-Dalou*, 29 years, and his body was only found four-five days later with that of his sister Yara (17 years). Four other victims were women, and Sarah, Yousef, Jamal and Ibrahim al-Dalou, kids aged one to seven.
In an interview by the Guardian “The War on Gaza”, Friday 23 november, Bernat Armangué writes this about the photo:
“This was the last picture I took this day (….). That day 11 members [that turned out to be 10 and at least two neighbours] of the al-Dalou family were killed (…). Some bodies were recovered and brought to the morgue so I went there to take some pictures. While I was there another family came to check if it was true that one of their relatives had been killed. They cried, held his body and one of them kissed his hand while saying goodbye. It was a rare tender moment there.”
* After initally having claimed that a high-ranking member of Hamas or Islamic Jihad was hiding in the three-storey building of the Al-Dalou family, the IDF has changed their “explanation” at least four times. When they found out that Muhammad al-Dalou was a low-ranking civilian police officer, he suddenly became the reason why the house was targeted. Typical IDF-lies.
Al-Haq has just released a video with interviews from Gaza. The first testimony is that of Jamal al-Dalou, the owner of the house. Listen to his ‘confessions’ about his grand-children being ‘terrorists’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrnLOFU-XMw
I forgot to add this photo. After that of Jihad Masharawi holding his little boy Omar, it’s the one that I couldn’t stop looking at. I have no informations about that little boy and his mother, and how she died.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=535360956491937
I will never forget that photo.
Neither will I 🙁 In fact I’ve become some kind of obsessed by it: what was her name, how did she die, if as 80% of people in Gaza she comes from ’48-Palestine, how much suffering there’s been in her life before this. I guess I’ll have to go to Gaza to find out….
When I read Armangue’s testimony about the killings of the Dalu family I mistakenly thought he was also talking about this picture being of another family member. Thanks for the correction.
Long ago it was realized — and said — that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is (in part) the reason that American and Israeli (and all other) eaders should be held accountable for war-crimes: the guarantee of immunity and impunity, which American and Israeli leaders have in effect granted to themselves, leaves all of mankind naked and undefended against the outrages of their absolute power.
The photo is a milestone and brings a human face to Palestinian suffering. For so long, the Israeli narrative dominated in almost every instance and this photo reminded the world that the Palestinian people are still struggling for freedom and paying the highest price for it.
If there’s one good thing Netanyahu achieved, it’s denting American MSM’s de facto conspiracy of silence regarding anti-Palestinian cruelty.
One wonders what’s next, calling Apartheid by its name, maybe?
True that. He couldn’t have done it better if he’d tried. What was so striking about this latest rampage was that Netanyahu was so obviously trying to show the Israeli people that he could be a merciless asshole and bring on another Cast Lead if he wanted to – it was the most gruesome and heartless piece of political theater. One difference, and it was a crucial one – that international journalists were in Gaza, unlike Cast Lead. The IOF tried to kill them, and succeeded in some cases (and certainly maimed some of them too), but as soon as those photos and news stories came out of Gaza, they hit the internet and went around the world. And none of us will ever forget the amazing young journalist Harry Fear, who kept us all informed almost constantly with live streaming TV and Twitter.
What makes this photo so iconic is that it could be any of us in that picture. We feel it.
[Comment deleted for violating comment rules–Off Topic]
Prophetic comments by three eminent Jews:
Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, 1944: “The concept of a racial state – the Hitlerian concept- is repugnant to the civilized world, as witness the fearful global war in which we are involved. . . , I urge that we do nothing to set us back on the road to the past. To project at this time the creation of a Jewish state or commonwealth is to launch a singular innovation in world affairs which might well have incalculable consequences.”
Albert Einstein, who also opposed the creation of a “Jewish state,” 1939: “There could be no greater calamity than a permanent discord between us and the Arab people. Despite the great wrong that has been done us [in the western world], we must strive for a just and lasting compromise with the Arab people…. Let us recall that in former times no people lived in greater friendship with us than the ancestors of these Arabs.”
Lord Edwin Montagu, the only Jewish member of the UK cabinet at the time, objected vehemently to the 1917 Balfour Declaration: “All my life I have been trying to get out of the ghetto and you want to force me back there again”. He was overruled by his colleagues, some of them avowed anti-Semites.
I am very sorry to say that Julius Rosenwald’s (founder of Sears Roebuck) granddaughter is a leading Jewish pro Israel neocon. She’s a leading donor to Islamophobe causes.
Funny how it turned out you are the opposite of a liberal.
You censor people response to no end.
I wonder how many of your readers know this ?
And you presume to write about gag orders of Israel. Bigot.
There was a great Jew who wrote about it once, something about eyes, logs and specs.
One of my comment rules involves not repeating ideas and views that have been repeatedly published here before. Your anti-Palestinian views have been voiced here not just once, but hundreds of times. Say something original (even if it disagrees with me) & you’ll be published. Natter on with the same old hasbara about missiles raining down on poor defenseless Israelis & Hamas wanting to exterminate you, and you won’t see the light of day.
This is a terrible sad image. it gives a face, a name, one family history behind. This genocide, with this photo, is no more anonymous, just another casualty number.
More photos like this should be showed, may be , we the ones in safety, would be at the end ashamed of letting it happen.
Look how he holds the victim’s hands with extreme care and gentleness, as trying not to do any more harm. I will never forget this photo.
I wish in vain not to see any photos like this.