Is it true that Palestinians "danced in the streets" of Gaza over the murder of the 5 settlers?

A Brand New Myth

In the wake of the horrific murders of five Jewish family members, including three children, in the West Bank settlement of Itamar, a number of conservative blogs have been pushing a story that crowds of Palestinians in Gaza turned out to “celebrate” the murders. The stories were accompanied by photos apparently from Getty Photos.

A Palestinian man is shown offering sweets to Hamas policemen in the streets of the Gaza town of Rafah to celebrate an attack which killed five members of an Israeli family in Itamar

 A Palestinian man distributing sweets in the streets of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on March 12, 2011 to celebrate an attack which killed five Israeli settlers at the Itamar settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus

Ynet news reported, “Gaza residents from the southern city of Rafah hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar where five family members were murdered in their sleep, including three children. Residents handed out candy and sweets, one resident saying the joy ‘is a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank.’”

The story was subsequently picked up by the Israeli press which reported jubilant Muslims crowded Gaza’s streets, handing out candy and sweets in the wake of the murders.Later, it came to North America and has been widely circulated by Zionist circles as a way to prove the basic, inhuman nature of Palestinians.

However, all of these claims appear to be based on a single story from last Saturday in the Israeli tabloid Ynet. http://www.ynetnews.com An internet search shows several pictures of the same man offering sweets to various people. He also seems to have a camera in his other hand. No “jubilant Muslims” are to seen in the background of the pictures. In fact, it looks like a normal day in Rafah.

All this appears to be an elaborate propaganda piece aimed – again – at portraying Palestinians as hate-crazed and Anti-Semitic. In fact, almost all organizations in Palestinian society have denounced the murders and called for an impartial investigation of what happened.