Jamie Lee Curtis mistakenly used a photo of Palestinian children fleeing from bombs to show support for Israel amid its recent declaration of war in the region.
On Saturday, Curtis shared a number of posts backing Israel’s response to coordinated attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas earlier that day.
One post included an image of cowering children along with an emoji of the Israeli flag and a caption that said, “Terror from the skies.”
Curtis seemed oblivious about the details of the photo, which was taken at a Palestinian school in the northern Gaza Strip.
Though she tagged freelance photographer Samar Abu Elouf in her post, the “Halloween” actor overlooked the fact Elouf plainly said the photo showed young Palestinians seeking refuge from Israeli bombs.
Curtis responded to the backlash in a statement from her representatives to HuffPost, saying, “I took down the post when I realized my error. The other post is a Guy Oseary repost. It’s an awful situation for all the innocent people in the line of fire.”
ANGELA WEISS via Getty Images
After Hamas breached Israel’s borders with a multi-pronged attack on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government responded by launching airstrikes on nearby Palestinian settlements, according to an Al Jazeera reporter on the ground in Gaza.
The outlet reports more than 1,000 people have been killed in the fighting, including 413 Palestinians.
While some parts of the media have described Hamas’ attacks as unprovoked and unprecedented, experts and supporters of Palestinian liberation familiar with the region say the attacks are a reaction to the Israeli government’s decadeslong apartheid against Palestinians.
“This war did not start this morning. It has been going on for decades,” Nathan Thrall, a writer and expert on Israel-Palestine, posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“Today’s bloodshed is the tip of an iceberg: an iceberg of state violence and ethnic subjugation. Blood will continue to be spilled so long as we ignore the root causes.”