Director of Kashif, Riham Abu Aita, was a speaker in the fourth session titled, “How do we confront media misinformation in times of war?” alongside Khalid Al-Bayeh, a Sudanese political cartoonist, civil rights activist, and journalist; and Irina Fedoriv, co-founder of the Ukrainian organization “Holka.” The session was moderated by Shatha Islam, the executive director of the New Horizons project and a geopolitical strategy consultant and analyst.
In her speech, Abu Aita discussed the challenges faced by fact-checkers and journalists in Palestine, primarily focusing on physical safety and targeting by the Israeli occupation. She also addressed the difficulties of verifying information amid the Israeli occupation’s cutting off of electricity and internet access. She explained that social media platforms, especially Meta and TikTok, exacerbate the challenges faced by fact-checkers in Palestine by limiting the reach of their posts and blocking other posts related to Palestine. TikTok deleted Kashif’s account about two weeks after the war on Gaza began.
Abu Aita referred to the “Pallywood campaign”, which accuses Palestinians of fabricating casualties and injuries in Gaza, claiming that they rent dolls from China to stage the killing of children. She highlighted the challenging situations where Kashif’s team is forced to communicate with the families of Palestinians killed or wounded by the Israeli army, asking them to send photos of their families while they were alive to prove that they are real and not dolls.
At the end of the session, Abu Aita urged the European Union to uphold its commitments, stop the war and injustice, hold the Israeli occupation accountable, and end the occupation.
