We return to yesterday’s smirking Jack-O-Lantern grin to update on the devastating Hamas attack against Israel. Something about the wicked smile evokes those worn by terrorists as they paraded living, and deceased, civilians around Gaza. Call it Trick or Terror, if you like. Hence my choice of a second shot, but colorless.
Israel’s confirmed death toll is the largest ever in a single day—more than 600, as I write. Two-hundred-sixty bodies were recovered around and about the site of the Supernova music festival. Hostages, nearly none military, including women, children, and families were hauled off to Gaza.
News media reports honed on Shani Louk, a 30-year-old German tattoo artist, who had attended Nova. Her apparently lifeless, naked body lay face down in the back of a pickup truck along with armed men—at least one of which draped a leg over her butt. Hamas claimed she was a soldier; not just a lie, since she also wasn’t Israeli. Terrorists whooped and yelled over their prize—one of many defenseless civilians. Wow, what men. What soldiers of war.
Wall Street Journal reports that “Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land, and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War”. Uh-oh.
So we return to Jack-O-Lantern illustration, this time bleaker black and white. I used Leica Q2 Monochrom to capture the Featured Image on Oct. 6, 2023. Vitals, aperture and shutter speed manually set: f/1.7, ISO 12500, 1/125 sec, 28mm; 7:58 p.m. PDT.