A video clip widely circulated in social media and reposted on international accounts and platforms with the claim that “Israeli children” were kidnapped by Hamas and detained in cages during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood which began on 7 October 2023.
The claim: “Hamas detains Israeli children in cages like animals”.
The Correction: The video is old and goes back to 3 days before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood began.
Kashif was able to verify the claim, confirming that the video is misleading and was published three days prior to the operation.
The first to publish the video was an account under the name “Mazloum fi bladi – مظلوم فبلادي” on Tiktok – username “user6903068251281”. The account was canceled when the video went viral, therefore, Kashif was not able to reach out to the account owner and verify its authenticity.
In conjunction with the misleading video going viral, on 8 October 2023, different accounts on X platform – previously Twitter – published that the video is old with a screenshot showing that the original account “Mazloum fi bladi” published the video four days ago, subsequently, prior to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In addition, the video contains a “non-original” synthesized sound of a man’s laughter provided by the audio-on-video synthesis feature on the “TikTok” platform. Kashif team investigated the origin of the sound and found that it is a trend in Palestine called “be careful of the olive tree”.
Dozens of users have used the sound that belongs to the account: “Swing.”
The owner of the “Mazloum Fiba ladi” account, a young man from the Gaza Strip, also appeared in a video clip Wednesday evening, 11 October 2023, after his account appeared again on Tiktok.
The man confirmed that the children who appeared in the circulating video clip were his relatives and not Israeli children and that he published the video three days prior to the operation.
In a related context, the “ פייק ריפורטר | FakeReporter ” via X platform, confirmed that the video is old and does not show “Israeli” children in cages, based on the circulating screenshot.
