The photo of a young child's bloody shoe that went viral was not from the Taliban school attack in Pakistan. Photo: Twitter.

A photo of a child’s bloody shoe circulating on social media in the aftermath of this week’s Taliban school attack in Pakistan is in fact an old picture not associated with the incident , BBC Trending revealed on Wednesday.

“I’m horrified to know that the picture has moved to Pakistan, and that it’s being used like that,” said Edi Israel, the photographer who took the image. “This is a known phenomenon that people take a photo from one place and use it like it was elsewhere.”

BBC Trending tracked down Israel who said he took the photo in May 2008 while working as a freelancer in Ashkelon. He photographed the bloody shoe following a Palestinian rocket attack on Israel. The shoe was left in a mall by a mother and daughter who were among the dozens injured in the strike. They both survived and Israel visited them in hospital the following week, according to BBC Trending.

The recycled image was this week associated with the Taliban school attack in Pashswar that resulted in the death of at least 141 people, most of them children. The BBC quoted one Twitter user who wrote, “This image says its all #PeshawarAttack.”

The photographer said he did not know his picture was being connected to the Peshawar attack until he was contacted by the BBC. A search on the photo-lookup site TinEye revealed the image was also used by both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Another viral picture associated with victims of the Peshawar massacre is a montage that includes the photo of Noah Pozner, the young Jewish boy who died in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in the U.S.