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News Clash

The Blindfolded Palestinian Girl With Multiple Identities

One internet sleuth exposes media lies and why you can't trust reports about what is happening in Gaza.

Photo of K. Walker K. WalkerJanuary 2, 2024
482 7 minutes read

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NOTE: This article may include commentary reflecting the author’s position.

We keep hearing about how Israel is committing war crimes in the war that Hamas triggered with the horrific terror attack on October 7.

We then have reports of thousands of Gazans that are killed with strikes — but without the media stating that Hamas, who are the elected officials in the Gaza Strip, don’t differentiate civilian and military casualties. (From some of the videos of Hamas terrorists returning to Gaza with hostages on October 7 and the experiences of the hostages themselves, maybe there’s a good reason for that.)

We rely on the media to keep us informed on what is happening half a world away, but how can we trust them? With new tools and information at our fingertips, internet sleuths are able to fact-check social media posts and other media claims instantly as one X user did over the weekend.

What she found was pretty incredible.

Robert Spencer reports in PJ Media:

Since Oct. 7, the public has been inundated with allegations of Israeli atrocities and human rights abuses. Israel, we’re told, is committing a “genocide” in Gaza, and, in fact, has been through all the years in which the Gazan population has grown steadily. The strange story of one young woman, or really, one photograph, is an object lesson in why such claims of Israeli evils should be taken with a large grain of salt.
On X, a poster who identifies herself as Hagit on Sunday posted a highly illuminating thread about a girl with “6 different identities,” and “all of them suffered from the IDF!” This is, said Hagit, “proof of how the Arab media blatantly lies regarding the ‘crimes of the occupation.” Is it really? Let’s see.
Source: PJ Media

Below is Hagit’s thread, but the posts are somewhat out of order.  We’ll look at each example she cites from the earliest incident to the most recent.

Using the photo of the handcuffed, blindfolded girl wearing a hijab, a French news website reported in 2015 that a 15-year-old girl was “murdered” by the IDF.

She appears to have made a miraculous recovery because, in June 2016, the Arabic news website, Wattan.net published an article that Salwa Taqaqta, who appears to have reverted to the tender age of 13 after her 2015 death, was sentenced to several months in prison and was released after 3 months. Just a few weeks earlier, the Palestine News Network reported that Salwa was a 14-year-old child prisoner and was denied release.

Then, in November of that same year, a Turkic-language website used the same photo to report that poor, little Nurhan Awwad, 16, was sentenced to 13.5 years in prison by the mean, old Jewish government.

In 2017, the Palestine Chronicle reported that 16-year-old Manar Majdi Shweiki was sentenced to 6 years in prison after the IDF found a knife in her backpack. The photo is the same one used by and is captioned, “Manar Shweiki after her arrest.”

In September 2018, another Arabic outlet, Sebafm.net, used the same photo in its report identifying the girl as 15-year-old Tasneem Basem Maatouq, who was arrested by the IDF to force her brother to surrender.

In December 2019, the girl was identified by Felesteen News as Afnan Abu Sneing, 14, who was arrested by the IDF for possessing a knife.

Here she is again in December 2023.

Blindfold Girl’s photo has been posted on social media over the last few years as an example showing how Israel treats the sweet, innocent (sometimes knife-wielding) Palestinians.

The suffering and maltreatment of innocent Palestinians just going about their lives by the “jackbooted thugs” in the IDF is a recurring theme.

In 2023, the same photo shows up again on social media — still without a name and with no context given.

State-run Palestinian news reported in 2019 that she was just an innocent girl walking to school and was detained by the IDF for no apparent reason.

Terrorist propaganda network Quds News posted the same photo on Instagram in 2021 showing the horrors that innocent Gazan girls are subjected to under “Israeli occupation.”

That poor girl! She’s been through so much — and all at the hands of the IDF. Not to mention the multiple identities and constantly changing age. And you thought that Benjamin Button’s life was tough!

Not included in Hagit’s thread is the 2021 Al Jazeera report on a couple of West Bank “martyrs” that includes the same photo captioned, “Occupation forces arrest a Palestinian girl at the Nashash checkpoint under the pretext of possessing a knife.”

As it turns out, the multiple reports of the arrest of a teen girl who was found with a knife have a kernel of truth to them.

Hagit then reveals that, according to Israeli news reports, Sabreen Mujahid Sanad, 14, was arrested for planning a knife attack in 2015.

Perhaps Sabreen was a patron of Hitler 2, the notorious Gaza clothing shop that used the 2015 Stabbing Intifada as inspiration for their front window display.

We know that media reports on what happens in Israel are biased because they come from biased sources.

It’s probably safe to take every report about “Israeli atrocities” in the Gaza Strip with a hefty dose of skepticism.

Photo of K. Walker K. WalkerJanuary 2, 2024
482 7 minutes read
Photo of K. Walker

K. Walker

ClashDaily's Associate Editor since August 2016. Self-described political junkie, anti-Third Wave Feminist, and a nightmare to the 'intersectional' crowd. Mrs. Walker has taken a stand against 'white privilege' education in public schools. She's also an amateur Playwright, former Drama teacher, and staunch defender of the Oxford comma. Follow her humble musings on Twitter: @TheMrsKnowItAll and on Gettr @KarenWalker