Ilhan Omar Shares Image Falsely Showing Dead Palestinian Children

MINNEAPOLIS — Rep. Ilhan Omar on Saturday circulated an image on social media purportedly showing the bodies of Palestinian children "murdered" by the Israeli military.

The post on X claimed — without source — that 614 Palestinian children have so far been killed in the war between Hamas and Israel.

However, the image of dead children was from a National Geographic article posted in 2013. The dead children were killed outside Damascus, Syria, on Aug. 21, 2013, "shortly after they succumbed to chemical weapon poisoning," the magazine reported.

The congresswoman reshared the post on her personal X account. She unshared it about an hour later.

Omar has been a vocal critic of Israeli policies since she was elected to Congress in 2018, though she was forced to apologize after receiving criticism from leaders in her own party over tweets about Israel.

In the days since last week's Hamas terrorist attack targeting Jews, Omar has spoken out against Israel's retaliatory strikes on Gaza, saying they will lead to a massive humanitarian crisis.

According to Al Jazeera, about 500 Palestinian children were killed in the first seven days of the war, though the toll is likely to rise as Israel's bombardment continues.

Rep. Ilhan Omar's office did not respond to Patch's request for comment.