Altered Images: Malaysian mall ‘illustrated life in Gaza’
Reposted from BBC News
An Israeli military blog reportedly used a photo of a shopping mall thousands of miles away in a post designed to prove that Gaza was not an “open-air prison”.
An enormous shopping mall the Israeli army claims is in the Gaza Strip. (Source: IDF Blog)
Titled What Happened to the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) post features photographs purporting to show Gazans playing volleyball on the beach, a luxury hotel, modern supermarket and images reflecting nightlife in the Palestinian territory. At the end, it quotes a tweet from @IDFSpokesperson – now apparently deleted – reading: “People say there is a humanitarian crisis in #Gaza. The hotels, beaches, malls & nightlife say otherwise. #MythBusted”. However, the picture of a mall later became conspicuous by its absence.
The Jerusalem-based Times of Israel explains: “The pictures did indeed show a different reality to the Gaza the world has become accustomed to seeing… but there was a slight problem with one of the snaps… The gorgeous mall in the photograph is not actually in Gaza. It is, rather, the Suria KLCC mall… in Kuala Lumpur.” The photograph had initially been called into question by comments suggesting it showed a mall in Hyderabad, India, before it was identified as the Malaysian centre. The blog later issued a correction admitting: “A photo previously included in this article was incorrectly sourced. It has been removed.”