The Girl in the Flames
We have become used to watching targeted killings and slaughter. But yesterday, an image so startling it broke through even the grim tedium.
The girl who was trapped in flames during the strike on Fahmi Al-Jarjawi School, is the sole surviving member of her family. Her name is Ward Sheik Khalil.
Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4’s International Editor retold the story. Warning this contains distressing images.
But then something else happened, her story started to get twisted.
According to this @BBCNews reporter she is a”tiny survivor captured calmly stepping through the flames”coaxed by her uncle to tell her story because she is now “a survivor turned celebrity” https://t.co/1hr6Xrswv2 pic.twitter.com/ZNFsHrvdNq
— Fintan McCarthy (@MccarthyFintan) May 26, 2025
Rather than be a tragic reminder of the horrors of the carnage being inflicted on the people of Palestine, Ward Sheik Khalil becomes, in this telling, “a survivor turned celebrity”.
This process has echoes of the case of Ali Ismail Abbas in the Iraq War. The 13-year-old lost both arms and suffered 60 per cent burns in a coalition attack on Baghdad early in the Gulf War which claimed the lives of his parents, a brother and 13 other family members. [What the orphan who became a symbol of the Iraq war says about Tony Blair now | The Independent | The Independent]
‘Little Ali’ as he was called was soon doing the rounds, and got a new pair of arms courtesy of the ‘big hearted readers’ of the Daily Mirror. On ITV news ‘Little Ali’ became the funny story at the end of the news. It was discovered he was a Manchester United fan. So the England team, led by David Beckham, all signed a shirt for him.
This is the infantilisation of horrors we are complicit in. There are different types of media bias: the bias of omission, erasure or jaundiced reporting or ‘both sidesism’. But this narrative framing is insidious in a different way.
Now we have a new turn in the appalling situation. Newly released footage and images reveal the ongoing dehumanisation of Palestinians, as thousands are confined to caged pathways and enclosed zones while waiting to receive meals at an Israeli-American run distribution point operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
News is emerging that the newly opened U.S.-backed distribution centers, guarded on the perimeter by Israeli forces, are being used to detain civilians. The UN Human Rights Office has said it believes 47 people were injured in Gaza yesterday when crowds overwhelmed an aid distribution centre run by the group backed by the US and Israel. But the groups own social media propaganda declared: “Humanity shines as thousands cheer the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, heralding a new era of hope and compassion.” #Gaza #israel #IDF #hamas #GHF
In this telling the USA and Israel are framed as compassionate heroes.
The reality as Gazan political analyst Muhammad Shehada writes is: “Thousands of starved Gazans storm the dystopian Israeli-American aid complex in Rafah after being forced to stand in endless queues & bake in the sun in a fenced concentration camp while being subjected to biometric surveillance.”
As Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur writes: “Concentration camp 2025. Starving people forced to walk miles under scorching heat. Lined up like animals, only a few are fed. Some are arrested, Some are shot at. New Israel US joint venture. The worst humanity is capable of from the bastions of Power. ”
We are becoming immune to the horrors we are witnessing, but this process is accelerated and amplified by the failure of western media.
The power of imagery should not be discounted. But, as Jehad Abusalim writes: “Why did burning girls matter in Vietnam but not in Gaza?” The ‘Napalm Girl’ photo shocked the world and helped end the Vietnam War, but a child surrounded by flames in Gaza can’t even provoke a ceasefire.
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This article does hammer home the point that there is much talk but little action. Gaza was a de facto concentration camp before the infamous Hamas attack. That Hamas was and is a terrorist organisation that has committed dreadful atrocities is not in doubt. However using the terrorist definition makes one ask what of the actions of the IDF. They kill men women and children who on no measure could be regarded as terrorists. Killing children and claiming that they are part of Hamas beggars belief. How many babies and 2 year olds carry weapons and pose a threat? If you judge Hamas to be a terrorist organisation, then by the same measures the IDF must be a terrorist organisation. If countries that support Hamas are terrorist nations, then Israel must be a terrorist nation.
We need to end the talk and develop actions such as those that were taken against South Africa in the days when apartheid ruled. The longer the war and the genocide continue, the harder it will be to get a peaceful resolution. Be in no doubt there are Israeli politicians who would like to see the extermination of all Palestinians. The sooner we realise this and do something about it the better.
There are war crimes being carried out by the IDF and the state of Israel is conducting genocide.
This article shows that creating distractions is deflecting from creating solutions.
More power to your elbow Mike, thanks for keeping the focus on one of the most serious issues faced by the world today
The sentiments are very sound but when you say do something it does beg the question, what?
In SA, the majority population (black people) were very much anti-apartheid and were ruled by a small, powerful and brutal white minority and it was possible to leverage that majority through boycotts etc, partly helped by significant white voices in SA who were also anti-apartheid (not forgetting the seminal figure of Mandel in jail) but in Israel? I am seeing no groundswell of anti-Israeli support / action from within. It is hard to see what us as individuals can do as we are pushing at a slammed, tightly shut door.
But I do not want to be defeatist, just looking for genuine suggestions for personal action that would really help.
Personally, I am getting more sensitised to things rather than immune. The story the other day about the murder (‘killing’) of young girl Yaqeen Hammad (11), who offered tips for surviving in a war zone, had me in tears.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/gazas-youngest-influencer-aged-11-among-children-killed-by-israeli-strikes
Utter disgust barely covers it.
But what it does do is render one speechless, helpless. No amount of articles condemning Israeli action or even protests on the streets of the UK can alter this, sadly.
Niemand- as an aside I have noticed an increased level of reporting of human suffering in Gaza on both Sky and BBC channels over last few days. I wonder if this is connected to the statement from Starmer, Carey & Macron which was more critical of actions of Israeli government?
Quite possibly though I have not noticed much change myself. I do not watch Sky but have seen plenty of BBC pieces over quite a long time about suffering in Gaza. But with the BBC, its output is big so it really does depend on what area of the BBC you focus on.
In regard to the wider point about children’s testimonies during war (invasion, occupation, bombardment, missing family members, disrupted schooling and so on), historian Svetlana Alexievich’s book Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories addresses the question: “What did it mean to grow up in the Soviet Union during the Second World War?” Unusually, the author provides no prefixing summary, apart from a couple of literary quotes, and lets the collected short testimonies of adults recollecting childhood speak for themselves. I have not found it an easy read, though the translation into English is clear.
But perhaps in Gaza cruelty is the point. Again, it’s worth noting that the USA is almost alone in not ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And the UK is an objector to the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict.
https://www.unicef.org.uk/what-we-do/un-convention-child-rights/
Perhaps sacrificing and harming children is somehow central to Judeo-Christian values and traditions?