Old, unrelated images shared out of context to show Israeli forces and Hamas treating kids in contrasting ways – Alt News

The initially announced 4-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war was extended by two days on November 28 to allow the release of more Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinian detainees in Israel. As many as 69 hostages (51 Israelis and 18 foreigners) and 150 Palestinian prisoners have been released in the past 4 days.

A photo collage is being widely shared on social media in which the picture on the left depicts an Israeli military officer dragging a Palestinian boy while the picture on the right shows a Hamas fighter walking side-by-side with a smiling Israeli boy and putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder in an affectionate manner. The nationality of the four individuals has been pointed out by placing flags of the two territories above their heads. The message that is sought to be conveyed through the collage is that while the Israeli officer is forcibly dragging the Palestinian boy by grabbing his neck, the Hamas fighter is treating the Israeli boy gently.

X (formerly Twitter) Blue user Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) shared the viral photo collage on November 26. The tweet received over 59 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 74,000 times. (Archive)

Interesting???? pic.twitter.com/PaNXiPnczH

— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) November 26, 2023

Another X user, Gilda Morkert (@g_morkert), shared the viral image on November 4 with the following caption: “Big difference, wouldn’t you say”. The tweet received over 5.26 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 10,000 times. (Archive)

Big difference, wouldn’t you say pic.twitter.com/Tm5bKnT8rG

— Gilda Morkert ❤️????????☮️ ???????????????????????? (@g_morkert) November 4, 2023

Several other users shared the same image amplifying the narrative that the photo collage depicts the difference in the treatment by the Israeli military and Hamas.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Fact Check

We cropped the two pictures in the collage and ran reverse image searchs on each of them separately. Here is what we found:

Picture on the left:

A reverse image search led us to a news report from March 12, 2018, by Middle East Eye. The report carried an image of the same boy being dragged by the uniformed man, seemingly taken at a different moment. The caption of the image said: “Israeli border guards detain a Palestinian boy during a demonstration outside the Lions Gate, a main entrance to Al-Aqsa mosque compound on 17 July 2017”. This indicates that the image is from 2017.

Taking a cue from the above, we ran a relevant keyword search that led us to the image in the viral photo collage. We found the picture on Getty Images and the image was taken by Ahmad Gharabli on July 17, 2017.

Picture on the right:

On running a reverse image search on the picture on the right we found a tweet by Palestinian journalist Youssef Omar Sharaf (@_Ysharaf) from 2021. The journalist shared the image with a caption in Arabic that can be translated as: “A picture from a Qassam military parade in Nuseirat, central sector”.

صورة من عرض عسكري للقســ ــام في النصيرات وسط قطاع #غزة #فلسطين_تنتصر pic.twitter.com/SEz7Z4tWum

— يوسف عمر شرف ???????? #غزة (@_Ysharaf) May 28, 2021

We found another tweet from June 2, 2021, carrying the image in question. X user @KhaledSafi shared the photo with the following caption in Arabic: “I need to read your comments on this photo. Especially in children’s view of a man #المقاومة. In order to compare it with what was reported by the Zionist Arab media! Photo taken by Attiya Darwish from the military parade in Nuseirat camp after the defeat of the aggression #غزة”.

أحتاج أقرأ تعليقاتكم على هذه الصورة
خاصة في نظرة الأطفال إلى رجل #المقاومة
كي أقارنها مع ما ورد على لسان الإعلام العربي المتصهين!

الصورة بعدسة عطية درويش من العرض العسكري في مخيم النصيرات بعد اندحار العدوان عن #غزة pic.twitter.com/QnKuBRGz9I

— Khaled Safi ???????? خالد صافي (@KhaledSafi) June 1, 2021

The Qassam Brigades is the military wing of Hamas.

Both these tweets prove that the image dates back to 2021. And there’s no mention in either of the tweets that the child in the picture is Israeli.

Hence, Neither of the images in the viral photo collage is recent or related to the current Israel-Hamas war. While the one on the left is from 2017 and does show a Palestinian child being dragged by an Israeli military officer, the image on the right dates back to 2021 and clicked during a military parade.

Related