Identifying Misinformation: Debunking Fake Images in the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Israel-Palestine, endless conflict? file Images dated several years ago or completely taken out of context have been circulating massively on social networks since Saturday October 7.

Since Saturday October 7, numerous images have reached us of the Hamas attack in southern Israel and its aftermath. While many are authentic, and allow us to document what happened, many videos or photos have little to do with the conflict in question, or are misinterpreted. We have identified a few of them.

Fake video of ‘Hamas terrorist with kidnapped baby’

American-Israeli lawyer Marc Zell, head of a group of Republicans abroad, published a video which he claims shows a “Hamas terrorist in Gaza with a kidnapped little Jewish girl”. And the lawyer added: “This is our enemy.”

As CheckNews was able to verify, this video has nothing to do with this weekend’s attack in Israel. And for good reason, she was in fact published in early September and there is no indication that she is a “little Jewish girl” or even that she was kidnapped, as the lawyer claims.

A video purporting to show “Gaza on fire”… which shows fireworks

The video has been viewed 200,000 times on TikTokand it is supposed to show Gaza under Israeli bombs following the Hamas attack.

But as many Internet users have noted, it is absolutely not a bombed city, but rather smoke bombs and fireworks. While CheckNews was unable to locate this particular excerpt, the video looks a lot like other picturestours in Algeria during celebrations linked to the Mouloudia Club of Algiers.

A rumor that General Nimrod Aloni is “in the hands of Hamas”

Many Twitter accounts (renamed X), including that of businessman Mario Nawfal for example, followed by nearly a million people, indicated that Major General Nimrod Aloni “was allegedly captured by Hamas” during the attack. A “huge” hostage taking, given the very high rank he occupies in the Israeli army, adds this account. In support of this “information”, a photo of a man with sunglasses framed by men in military uniform, also relayed by certain media such as The Telegraph.

🚨🚨BREAKING: Israeli Commander Nimrod Aloni has been captured by Hamas in the ongoing war.

Analyst: “This is big. Israel is meant to be a big military force. This shows the extent to which they are on the back foot and not ready to respond to this attack. This also shows the… pic.twitter.com/UCCy3NSHhD

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 7, 2023

The Israeli army finally denied this rumor. Above all, General Nimrod Aloni participated in a military meeting following the Hamas attack, thereby proving that he was not in the hands of the armed group, as we can see in a video.

Old “rocket firing” videos taken out of context

Several videos were presented as recent images documenting shootings coming from the Gaza Strip and towards Israel.

🚨JUST IN: Video of a salvo of rockets fired by Hamas from the Gaza Strip towards Israel.

Earlier it was reported that Hamas tried to attack the airport in Tel Aviv. Rockets were also fired at Israeli Ashkelon.

Some of the rockets failed to be shot down: a few minutes ago, one… pic.twitter.com/CNFYTScL4U

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 8, 2023

This is the case of these images for example, shared by the same Mario Nawfal. They are supposed to show several salvos of rockets, some of which are believed to have managed to hit the city of Ashkelon in southern Israel. But the video, of poor quality, was posted on YouTube at least three years ago, as spotted by the Aurora Intel account, and therefore has nothing to do with the current conflict. Ditto for this video presented as a “new aerial attack by the Palestinian resistance”… which dates back to at least two years.

A fake video of military hostages

“Hamas released a video of the Israeli officers they took hostage.” On Twitter or TikTok, a sequence of approximately one minute is widely shared by pro-Hamas accounts. We see several handcuffed men giving their identity, and indicating their rank in the army.

But you only need to look at their names to realize that they are not in fact Israeli officers, but Turkish military officialsarrested after the attempted coup in 2016 in Ankara.

Israeli children held hostage in animal cages?

To illustrate the “horror of the attack” by Hamas in Israel on Saturday morning, many commentators and Internet users relayed a video which allegedly shows very young Israeli children being held in dog cages. Images which were, for example, mentioned by an IDF spokesperson on BFM TV, who mentions “videos circulating” on social networks.

It is difficult to say where these images come from: the original video, published on TikTok, has since been deleted, by an account which is also inaccessible.

But information still allows us to establish that this video was not filmed in Gaza since the attack on October 7: as the Israeli verification media FakeReporter was able to confirm (which took several screenshots that ‘he sent to CheckNews), the video in question was already circulating on TikTok on October 4. It therefore predates the Hamas attack and therefore cannot show Israeli children kidnapped on Saturday.

ATTENTION: The video which claims to show the abducted Israeli kids in cages in Gaza is FALSE. These are NOT Israeli children, and the video was posted more than four days ago – before the current war.
Please do not spread this false and harmful video.

Follow us for more… pic.twitter.com/KmiVg5SxEW

— fake reporter | FakeReporter (@FakeReporter) October 8, 2023

Several accounts then indicated that these were not Israeli children but young Palestinians being held by soldiers of the Israeli army. But here too, there is nothing to confirm this: the “proof” of this assertion refers to another video which has nothing to do with the one broadcast in recent days.

2023-10-10 00:32:57
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