Thomas Wictor

When I first saw this image of what was said to be the Israeli bombing of Yasser Arafat International Airport on July 7, 2014, I thought it looked very strange. Several other pictures by the same photgrapher were published, and they all had a whiff of fraudulence about them. A little research proved that these are faked photos. Very obviously, very badly faked.

First, the picture that struck me as deeply odd.

Those would have to be mushroom clouds from GBU-31 2000-lb JDAMs, the only Israeli aerial munitions that can create such towers of smoke.

However…

I’ve never in my life seen four JDAM mushroom clouds that were not only rising into the sky together but were all exactly the same height. Also, the clouds are the same distance apart, and their bottoms are perfectly situated on the horizon. It simply doesn’t look like a real photo.

That’s because it isn’t. Here’s what the caption says.

Gaza International Airport, July 7, 2014.

But it’s actually called Yasser Arafat International Airport. See the red-and-white control tower in the JDAM photo?

Yasser Arafat International Airport had a tan control tower.

And the Israelis knocked it down on December 4, 2001. It doesn’t exist. Therefore the red-and-white control tower shown in the JDAMs image is not at Yasser Arafat International Airport.

There are at least four published photos that purport to show the July 7, 2023 bombing that killed eight Palestinians. Here’s another.

You can see in that picture that the four mushroom clouds are not equidistant. More proof that the photos are faked. Mushroom clouds don’t slide along the ground until they’re all evenly spaced.

This photo allegedly depicts the first, second, and third JDAM strikes.

In this next image, the mushroom clouds on the far left and right have grown considerably, but the one second from the left is still the same size. It’s waiting for the other three to catch up, I guess.

Here are the airport radar and radio towers.

Yasser Arafat International Airport has neither. They were destroyed by the Israelis thirteen years ago. This is all that’s left.

Finally, we see all four mature mushroom clouds, posing for their portraits.

These photos are composite images. You can tell by looking at the water tank on the roof in this picture.

Note how hard and black the edge of the tank is, as though it were outlined with a fine-tipped pen.

The elements of the composite are as follows.

1. The building in the left foreground.

2. The building in the right foreground and the background with the unidentified airport.

3. All the mushroom clouds in their various stages.

I made a gif that shows that these images are faked. Look at the building in the left foreground.

Observe the trees, water tanks, and rooftop cupola. Their angle stays exactly the same while the angles of everything else in the photos change. That’s not physically possible.

If the photographer moved to his right or left, the angle of the building in the left foreground would change. It doesn’t. That’s because it’s a cutout. The photo of the building in the left foreground is repeated in all of the images.

Agence France Presse, Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash 90, and Getty Images got some explainin’ to do.

Update

Found another image by “photographer” Abed Rahim Khatib, this one published by Reuters.

In this photo he put the mushroom cloud on the left IN FRONT of the radio and radar towers.

Oops.

Reuters, you’ve done this before. Lots of times. In your eagerness to portray American, British, and Israeli troops as savages, you let clowns like Abed Rahim Khatib ruin what’s left of your reputation.

Doesn’t make any difference to me. I haven’t believed anything you’ve published since 2006, when you climbed up Hezbollah’s rear end.

Update Two

I’ll never understand why people who have really good gigs always have to blow it. I guess they get greedy for even more attention and even more accolades.

Take a peek at the mushroom cloud in the center of this photo.

Look familiar?

The mushroom clouds in the middle of each image are identical, but the ones on either side are completely different.

Abed, you are so fired.

Update Three

Here’s a hilarious one from a different fauxtographer, Ismael Mohammed. This composite was published by United Press International.

Every mushroom cloud is exactly on the horizon or behind a building, there’s no damage anywhere, and the photo represents thirteen simultaneous strikes with 2000-lb GBU-31 JDAMs.

Absolutely preposterous. This image was faked by someone who has no military knowledge whatsoever. It’s the fantasy of someone whose brain has been rotted by propaganda and movies.

There’s no destruction! None. This is another FRAUD.