The Washington Post issued an apology on Tuesday for its front-page presentation on Monday, which juxtaposed a photo of mourners grieving an 11-year-old killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack with a perplexing headline about Israeli airstrikes.
The headline, “Israel hits its targets in Lebanon,” placed directly under the image of grieving family members surrounding the casket of Alma Ayman Fakhr al-Din, 11, “did not provide adequate context,” the newspaper acknowledged in an editor’s note on Tuesday.
“The headlines should have noted that the Israeli strikes were a response to a rocket strike from Lebanon that killed 12 teenagers and children in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights,” it said.
“The photo depicted mourning for one of those victims, as the caption noted.”
Alma and 11 other young people were killed in the Hezbollah rocket attack on a soccer field on Saturday.
The strike injured another 40 people and was the deadliest against Israel since the Hamas terror attack on October 7.
The newspaper faced immediate backlash online for the error, including criticism from the Israel Defense Forces, which posted on X, “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.”
“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?” Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy added on X, along with a screenshot of the front page.
Pro-Israel Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) also questioned the paper’s decision to portray Israel as the “aggressor” beneath an image of a child killed by the terror group.
One online commenter accused the Jeff Bezos-owned publication of acting “a propaganda arm of Hamas since October.”
The tragic attack on the Golan Heights occurred as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was wrapping up his visit to Washington, DC.
Netanyahu rushed back to Israel on an earlier flight to address the crisis and vowed that Israel “will not let this pass in silence.”
Despite Netanyahu’s pledge of retaliation, several families of the young victims declined to meet with him, as reported by Haaretz.
Local officials in Majdal Shams also reportedly requested that government representatives not attend the children’s funerals, and those who did were met with jeers from the mourners.
The Israeli military is investigating why the country’s renowned Iron Dome missile defense system failed to intercept the rocket, identified as an Iranian-made Falaq with a 117-pound warhead.
The military suggested that the rocket’s short flight path—only about six miles from the Lebanese town of Chebaa to the Golan Heights—might have been too brief for the defense system to launch an interceptor missile.
Hezbollah promptly denied responsibility for the attack.
It remains unclear what the group’s motives were for targeting the Druze community in the Golan Heights, many of whom identify as Syrian citizens.
Druze leaders in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel condemned what they perceived as the Israeli government’s attempt to create divisions within their closely-knit community following the attack.
“For sure, it was not targeting Majdal Shams. There are many Israeli military bases around the town. I expect this threat was heading their way,” said Nabeeh Abu Saleh, a paramedic from the town who responded to the scene.
One of Abu Saleh’s nephews was killed, and another was injured in the attack, he said. At the site, some body parts were found as far as 300 feet from the point of impact.
“We buried our children. We don’t want retaliation. We have families in Lebanon, in Syria, and we have brothers here in Israel,” he insisted.

{Matzav.com}