<\/p>\n
Maria Julia Cassis was sitting down to a meal in her terraced home in north London when her six-year-old son ran into the dining room, his face pale.<\/p>\n
The puzzle game on his Android phone had been interrupted by a video showing Hamas fighters, terrified Israeli families and blurred graphic footage. Over a black screen, a message from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the first grader: \u201cWE WILL MAKE SURE THAT THOSE WHO HARM US PAY A HEAVY PRICE.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cassis, a 28-year-old barista from Brazil, said that the ad left her son shaken and she quickly deleted the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was shocked,\u201d she said in a telephone interview last week. \u201cHe literally said, \u2018What is this bloody ad doing in my game?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/em> has not been able to establish how the ad came to her son\u2019s video game, but her family isn\u2019t alone. The news agency has documented at least five other cases across Europe where the same pro-Israel video, which carried footage of rocket attacks, a fiery explosion, and masked gunmen, was shown to gamers, including several children.<\/p>\n In at least one case, the ads were played inside the popular \u201cAngry Birds\u201d game made by SEGA-owned developer Rovio.<\/p>\n Rovio confirmed that \u201csomehow these ads with disturbing content have in error made it through to our game\u201d and were now being blocked manually. Spokesperson Lotta Backlund did not provide details on which of its \u201cdozen or so ad partners\u201d had supplied it with the ad.<\/p>\n Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs\u2019 head of digital, David Saranga, confirmed that the video was a government-promoted ad but said he had \u201cno idea\u201d how it ended up inside various games.<\/p>\n