5-year-old Ido Avigal, who died by Gaza rocket fire in 2021, had his photo misappropriated by Ahmad Tibi who purported that he was a Palestinian child killed by Israeli fire.
By World Israel News Staff
Arab Israeli MK Ahmad Tibi has come under fire for publishing a photograph of a Jewish Israeli child – who was killed by rocket fire from Gaza terrorists – among the faces of Palestinian children allegedly killed by the IDF.
In a since-removed post shared in response to a tweet by Israel Hayom journalist Yehuda Schlesinger, Tibi depicted 36 children, one of whom was Ido Avigal. Avigal, aged 5, died in May 2021 during a rocket attack launched from the Gaza Strip on a residential area in Israel.
Avigal’s mother took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to request that her son’s picture be removed from the montage.
“Hey Ahmad, what’s up, you read me?” she wrote on X. “It’s totally cool to take all sorts of kids, put them in one photo, and tell the world that the IDF killed them, but is there a chance that you could remove the photo of my child from there? I am pretty sure Hamas killed him, and also wounded my daughter, and my nephews, as well as myself. But I’m not a child, so whatever. Ah, yeah. They did actually fire at a home.”
Schlesinger’s original post on X asserted that the IDF “does not bomb homes with children [inside].” It came after an interview aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in which Shira Eting, a former combat helicopter pilot who is active in the Brothers and Sisters in Arms protest group, spoke about the absolute trust pilots must have in the decision-makers ordering strikes that might potentially harm children. The comment was part of a broader discussion on the Israeli government’s plans for judicial reform.
Tibi, who is in the Hadash-Ta’al party, accompanied the montage with the comment, “Except for these times” in a bid to counter Schlesinger’s claim.
Avigal died during Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021, in which more than 4,000 rockets were aimed at civilian population centers in Israel.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called Tibi a “terrorist” in a harsh rebuke.
“Ahmad Tibi the terrorist, are you not ashamed to use the photo of an innocent Jewish child who was murdered by your friends in Hamas? It is a disgrace that you are in the Knesset.”