A group of Israeli soldiers takes a selfie near the ruins of a Gaza town on the Israeli border on February 19.TSAFRIR ABAYOV (AP)Selfies of war crimes in Gaza
An Al Jazeera documentary brings together horrific images of the devastation in the Strip, including those recorded and shared on social media by Israeli soldiers demolishing houses, humiliating prisoners, or playing with Palestinian women’s underwear
There are reasons to be wary of Al Jazeera: the largest news channel in Arabic, which also broadcasts in English, is owned by the Emirate of Qatar, which is only too happy to deploy its influence in the region. It sparked the Arab Spring, which succeeded in toppling some tyrants but not in consolidating democracies (there is none in Qatar either). There are also reasons, perhaps more, to pay attention to what Al Jazeera has to say: not only as a thermometer of how Arab countries are reacting to the Middle East conflict, but also because it is the global television channel with the greatest presence in Gaza, given that the major international media outlets are denied access. It has first-hand material that it continues to broadcast despite the fact that Israeli forces killed four of its journalists (and the entire family of its local chief, Wael Dahdouh, who continued to work through the heartbreak.) It is no longer present in Israel, where its activities have been banned.
