There is nothing subtle about this AFP/Getty Images photo of a palestinian mother crying about her dead son.
What the caption doesn’t tell you is that sonny was an Islamic Jihad terrorist who attempted a suicide bombing attack in an Israeli town (I cannot find any information regarding whether he was successful or not, nor how he died).
Regarding the last part of the caption, it is referring to the Savoy Hotel attack:
At 11:00 p.m. on the night of March 4, 1975, eight Palestinians in two teams landed by boat on the Tel Aviv beach at the foot of Allenby Street. Shooting and throwing grenades, they took over the Savoy Hotel near the center of the city. The guests were taken hostage. The Palestinians threatened that if Israel did not release 20 Palestinian prisoners within four hours the hostages would be executed.
Early the next morning, the Israeli counter-terrorism unit Sayeret Matkal stormed the hotel, killing seven of the perpetrators and capturing one. Five hostages were freed, while eight were killed. Three soldiers, including former Sayeret Matkal commander Uzi Yairi, were also killed.
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Initial Palestinian planning had called for an attack against the Israeli tourist city of Nahariya, yet the team was apparently unable to locate the city on the night of the attempt, two months earlier. The operation’s objectives were then changed to the Manshiya Neighborhood Youth Club and the Tel Aviv Opera Building. The contingency plan in case the original targets could not be located was to select any nearby populated buildings as targets. This resulted in the Savoy Hotel raid, as it was the only illuminated building on the street.
Now back to the caption. Leaving aside the obvious grammatical error, the caption writer has decided to refer to the terrorists as “commandos”, and the Israeli rescue operation as an “assault” on the hotel.
Perhaps a bit more subtle than the sledgehammer effect of the grieving mother, but just as insidious.
Update [Judge Dan]: I have found an article from last July naming 84 terrorist bodies the PA has asked Israel to return. one of them is Zaid Hanani, with a description of when and how he died (2003, terrorist attack in the Jordan valley). A bit of internet investigation resulted with this article in Ynet from 2003 (in Hebrew), where the attempted terrorist attack of Zaid is reported:
An IDF lookout spotted a suspected figure near the greenhouses of Hamra, in the Jordan valley. A force from Netzah Yehuda battalion was called in. when they approached the Palestinian, he fired at them but didn’t hit anyone. The soldiers returned fire, killing him. He was wearing a combat vest and near his body were an AK-47 and a magazine.
More importantly, in July 2002, exactly one year before, there was a successful Attack on Hamra, when a Palestinian terrorist killed Miri Ohana and her 11 year old daughter Yael, as well as an IDF soldier.
