Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip following an attack by Hamas has reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble and killed thousands of civilians -- including children. But a photo of a girl supposedly being crushed under the boot of a soldier is unrelated to the war; the image has circulated for more than a decade and appears to show street theater in Bahrain.

"#IsraeliChildAbusers An IDF agent stands with his boot on the chest of a little Palestinian girl of perhaps age 8. His machine gun points directly within inches of her face," says Jamal Al-Mulla, a Kuwaiti entrepreneur, in a November 29, 2023 post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The same claim circulated elsewhere on the platform before the end of a temporary ceasefire in Gaza on December 1.

Israel resumed combat, sending dozens of tanks into southern Gaza and carrying out a series of airstrikes across the Palestinian territory as the truce expired with no agreement to extend it.

The ceasefire provided time to exchange hostages and pause fighting that began after Hamas fighters launched an unprecedented attack October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping around 240, according to Israeli authorities.

In response, Israel declared war and vowed to crush the Palestinian Islamist movement. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says 16,248 people have been killed in the territory, most of them women and children -- a toll that has sparked global alarm and mass demonstrations.

But the photo shared online is unrelated to the war; it is more than 10 years old and appears to show street theater in Bahrain.

Old photo

A reverse image search on Google surfaced multiple blog entries sharing the picture over the last decade. Some show the same event photographed from wider angles

In an archived 2012 blog post, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said the picture did not depict a combat scene.

"The photo was identified as staged due to several fallacies, such as the use of an AK-47 rifle, which the IDF doesn't use, as well as inconsistencies with the imposter's uniform, and with operational reports from the field," the military said in the post.

Uncropped images of the event contain several clues that the scene was staged.

A makeshift Israeli flag, seemingly made of paper, appears on the purported soldier's chest. The girl lying on the ground is also holding a piece of paper with some red marks on it.

Some of the crowd is watching the scene while others have their eyes turned in another direction -- suggesting there was a procession or series of performances, not a genuine conflict.

AFP could not independently verify the origin or location of the photo, but some of the earliest blog posts describing the scene indicate it shows a street festival in Bahrain.

Several linked to a thread from a now-deleted blog about the village of Karbabad. An archived version of the December 2009 entry does not display photos, but it does describe the scene in Arabic and notes it took place on the ninth day of the month of Muharram.

"This is an analogy of the brutal Israeli forces and how they treat people," the thread says, according to a Google translation.