So it’s come to this. Israel has felt moved to release images of the bloodied and charred corpses of babies – of murdered infants – to try to convince a cynical online world that even its most defenceless, tiny citizens were among the 1,300 people killed by Hamas last weekend.

Last night, Israel’s official social-media accounts posted three images. One picture shows a slain baby, his or her face blurred, covered in blood in an open body bag. Another two pictures show pint-sized corpses, burned beyond recognition. ‘This is the most difficult image we’ve ever posted. As we are writing this we are shaking’, said the text accompanying one image. ‘We went back and forth about posting this, but we need each and every one of you to know. This happened.’

This was a clear response to the stomach-turning cynicism that has swirled online over the past few days, following a report from Nicole Zedek, a journalist working for Tel Aviv-based news channel i24, about the massacre at the Kfar Aza kibbutz. She had spoken to soldiers who had seen ‘bodies of babies with their heads cut off’, she said, in a live broadcast from the scene on Tuesday. In another report, Zedek mentioned ‘40 babies at least were taken out on gurneys’. The two claims were then mixed up on social media, leading some to say that 40 babies had been beheaded.

[I noticed that right off myself and asked immediately where someone had said 40 “decapitated” babies. That was never the report But weren’t 40 DEAD babies horrific enough, and if even one had been mutilated, less mind more, wasn’t that even ghastlier than anything we could imagine? The quibbling was sickening. ~ Beege]