Freelance photographer Lazar Simeonov watched from his Gaza apartment window on the afternoon July 16 as three Israeli shells struck a shack at the edge of a beach where seven young boys played. When the dust settled, four of them — all members of the Bakr extended family — lay dead, apparently victims of a mistake by the Israeli military on the ninth day of its Operation Protective Edge in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Simeonov and a number of other foreign journalists staying nearby ran to the beach. He was horrified by the scene he found there: Four children lay dead on the sand and nearby dock, their lifeless bodies torn apart by the blasts.
Assured that the three surviving children were receiving medical attention, Simeonov took out his cameras. The sight of a mutilated corpse would cause most to turn away, but the photographer did not flinch. “While taking photos in those circumstances,” he told Al Jazeera, “you don't really have time to think. You just do your job the best you can. That's why you're there — to show the world what's happening. The reality hits you hard afterwards.”
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