The ‘Napalm Girl’ photo shocked the world and helped end the Vietnam War – but a viral video of a child surrounded by flames and other similar images in Gaza can’t even provoke a ceasefire. The difference today isn’t public indifference – it’s political impunity.
By Jehad Abusalim, Reposted from Zeteo, May 27, 2025
When the ‘Napalm Girl’ photo appeared in US and international media in 1972, it shocked the world. The image showed a young Vietnamese girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, running naked, screaming in agony, her body burned by napalm dropped by the US-backed South Vietnamese army. The photo captured the raw, inescapable truth of war, and it forced people, especially in the United States, to confront the human cost of their government’s actions in Vietnam. It became a catalyst, a turning point, a symbol of a war that had lost its moral justification.
Now, more than 50 years later, the world is again seeing images of children burned alive. But this time, the response is different. This time, the images don’t seem to pierce through power in the same way. The pain in Gaza is undeniable, the evidence overwhelming. But the accountability is missing.
Just on Monday, footage emerged from Gaza after an Israeli airstrike hit the Fahmi al-Jirjawi school in Gaza City. The school was sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinian families, many sleeping in makeshift tents in the courtyard and classrooms. At least 36 people were killed in the bombing, according to Al Jazeera, and many of them (nearly half) were children. Dozens more were critically wounded, with bodies burned beyond recognition.
One clip in particular shook many. It showed a 5-year-old child, Ward Jalal al-Sheikh Khalil, trying to escape a burning classroom, her tiny silhouette surrounded by flames. The 11-second video, shot from a distance, spread quickly on Telegram and other platforms. You could barely see her form against the fire. Somehow, Ward survived. But her mother and at least five of her siblings were killed. Her father is in critical condition.
When I saw that clip of Ward, I immediately thought of Kim Phuc. Like Ward, Kim survived a fire meant to kill. She survived the war that burned her, and later became a peace activist, a UNESCO ambassador, and a recipient of prestigious prizes. Her suffering, her survival, and her transformation were all given meaning in part because her pain was seen and believed.
But what about Ward?
Today, scenes like Ward’s are not rare; they are daily. In Gaza, there are dozens of “Napalm Girl” moments each day, and they don’t come filtered through distant photo wires or delayed coverage. They come alive. This genocide is being live-streamed by Palestinian journalists and by ordinary people who refuse to let their suffering go unseen. Burned children, screaming fathers, headless infants – these images are not just real, they are relentless.
So why won’t the world react the same way? Why did one photo of a burned child help end a war, while hundreds of clips showing burned Palestinian children can’t even provoke a ceasefire?
Political Impunity
During the Vietnam War, Americans saw their own government’s failure, and they pushed, eventually, to end it. But in Gaza, much of the Western political establishment is actively shielding Israel from accountability.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: The Western political establishment is heavily influenced by the Israel lobby, one of the wealthiest most powerful lobbies in the hallways of Congress–which lobbies on behalf of a foreign government without the oversight such groups should have. The Israel lobby works to portray those who oppose the genocide of Palestinians as villains, and the perpetrator of genocide as the victim.]
Atrocities are downplayed, denied, or drowned out. The footage circulates, the horror is undeniable, yet the official narrative stays intact: Israel is merely defending itself.
That phrase “defending itself” has become a moral shield behind which anything can happen. Even the deaths of thousands of children. Even attacks on hospitals, schools, and refugee camps. Even mass starvation. That shield holds, no matter what the cameras show.
It would be wrong to say ordinary people don’t care. They do. In fact, we have seen some of the largest protests of the 21st century in support of Gaza and Palestine. The student movement in the US and around the world has been historic. On social media, Gaza dominates conversations. Millions are witnessing, mourning, and organizing. The difference today isn’t public indifference – it’s political impunity.
Governments have adapted to outrage, especially following the Arab uprisings and the “Occupy” moments. They no longer try to silence protest entirely; instead, they absorb it, contain it, and outlast it. You can march, post, chant, write – but the war continues. The alliances hold. The bombs keep falling. In the meantime, Israel’s allies in the West are actively working to dismantle the very framework – the context – in which protests and other forms of genuine, democratic expression can push for change. Rather than going after protests one by one, they’re trying to dismantle the structure that makes them matter in the first place.
That’s the cruel irony of our time: never before have we had so much evidence of war crimes, and never before has that evidence seemed to matter so little in stopping them. The images from Gaza are no less powerful than the Napalm Girl – they are just less politically useful to those in power.
We don’t need another iconic photo to prove this genocide is wrong. We already have thousands. What we need is a world where images and clips like Ward’s don’t just go viral – they force consequences, shift policy, and break the political immunity that shields power from accountability.
Jehad Abusalim, from Deir el-Balah, Gaza, is the executive director of the Institute for Palestine Studies-USA and the co-editor of Light in Gaza (2022).
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