HP Bias: The Curious Case of Wafa Al-Bis

The Huffington Post covered the news that some Palestinian prisoners returned in the prisoner swap will be deported to the Gaza Strip or some third party country and will not be allowed to return "home". Check out the picture:

Look at that poor Palestinian family, waiting and hoping for their poor daughter to return. Here's the caption for the photo:

"Sameh al-Bis, father of Palestinian prisoner Wafa al-Bis, shows a picture of his daughter, while gathering with relatives and friends at their family home in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011. Al-Bis is likely to be one of the inmates freed in the upcoming prisoner swap for a captive Israeli soldier. Hamas says Israel has agreed to release all 27 Palestinian women who are held in Israeli prisons. The final list of names of prisoners to be freed has not been released yet."

The father, patiently waiting for the return of his beloved daughter. How could it not rend your heartstrings?

But wait, who is Wafa al-Bis? According to the BBC, she was caught with explosives on her way to an Israeli hospital.

Wafa al-Bis was stopped on her way on her way to Beersheba hospital where she was to receive treatment for burns.

Ms Bis said on Israeli TV she wanted to be a suicide bomber but then later told foreign journalists the explosives were planted on her without her knowledge.

The incident comes amid a rise in violence despite a four-month truce.

The Israeli military said Ms Bis was stopped by suspicious soldiers at the Erez crossing point between Gaza and Israel.

The army said she had tried to blow herself up there but the explosives did not detonate.

Humanitarian case

Israeli officials said Ms Bis, who comes from the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza, was burnt in a cooking accident five months ago, and had received treatment on humanitarian grounds in the Beersheba hospital.

They said she was making another trip for follow-up treatment on Monday, but planned to blow herself up instead.

In an interview shown on Israeli television, Ms Bis said her "dream was to be a martyr". 

 She said she was recruited by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades - an off-shoot of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction.

Ms Bis also said she had been angry over allegations that Israeli guards had ripped out pages of the Koran at a prison in northern Israel, claims Israel denies.
"What angered me and the Palestinian people is the abuse of the Koran," she said. "Should we sit in silence with our hands tied?"
Later, she pleaded for mercy because she "didn't kill anyone". 

 Wafa Al-Bis is an attempted mass murderer. But the Huffington Post saw no reason to mention this fact in the photo caption or article. Inconvenient facts like why many Palestinians were in jail in the first place have no place in the HP narrative.