By Anmol Alphonso
A video showing a blogger in Gaza talking about Israeli airstrikes and another video showing a young man with tubes attached to his body in a hospital bed is being shared by pro-Israel accounts with a false claim that the two videos show the same Palestinian man pretending to be injured.
BOOM found that the claims are false and that the videos show two separate Palestinian youth. The young man in the hospital lost his leg during an Israeli raid at a refugee camp in the West Bank in July 2023 whereas the man in the other clip is Gaza blogger Saleh Aljafarawi.
The Gaza strip which is controlled by Islamic militant group Hamas has been under constant bombardment by Israeli airstrikes after the attack by the militant group on October 7, 2023, which killed 1400 Israelis and had taken 200 hostages. According to Gaza's Ministry of Health 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 minors have been killed so far in these airstrikes.
In the 24 seconds video, which has a split comparison, on one frame a Gaza blogger talking about the Israeli airstrikes, and in the second frame an injured person can be seen hospitalised. The caption of the video claims that it shows the same person hospitalised just a day before and the very next day running around and reporting on the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
'Pallywood' is an unfounded right-wing conspiracy where Palestinian civilians are falsely accused of staging their injuries or deaths. The term is a play on the words Hollywood and Palestine. Pro-Israel accounts also use the terms 'crisis actors' to peddle the bogus conspiracy. BOOM has previously debunked several such pieces of misinformation.
The video was tweeted by Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali), Israeli influencer and former social media adviser for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who posted the video on X (formerly known as Twitter) with the caption, "Palestinian blogger “miraculously” healed in one day from "Israeli bombing". Yesterday, he was “hospitalized,” today, he is walking and walking like nothing happened, I don't watch Netflix because Pallywood propaganda is the actual comedy."
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The same false claim was also tweeted by the Israel's official X handle with the hospital video claiming that both are the same individuals. The post has now been deleted.
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Several other verified X accounts including Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) posted the same false claim. BOOM has previously debunked misinformation posted by this Indian handle.
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Also Read:Old Video Shared As Protesters Attacking Israeli Consulate In Istanbul
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the individuals in both these videos, one of a boy in the hospital, and another of a man on ground in Gaza are different. The first video from a hospital is of a 16 year old boy - Mohammed Zendiq who lost his leg during an Israeli raid at the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank on July 24, 2023. Whereas the man seen in the second video giving commentary on ground about the Israeli airstrikes is Saleh Aljafarawi, a blogger who has been documenting the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Taking hint from several posts identifying the man in the second video as Palestinian blogger Aljafarawi, we found the original video which was posted by him on his Instagram handle on October 26, 2023. The same building as in the viral video can be seen here.
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Several other videos of him on the ground documenting the impact of the airstrikes have also gone viral on X which are posted on his Instagram handle
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Additionally, on breaking the hospital video into keyframes and running a reverse image search, we found that the original video was posted on Tik Tok around two months ago by the handle (@hamodahmdan1). This pre-dates the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas which began after the October 7, 2023.
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We can see other videos of Zendiq posted on Tik Tok, one uploaded last month where he can be seen moving his amputated leg.
The viral hospital video had been posted on August 18, 2023, with the hashtag "#Nour_Shams_Camp_”. On searching for this camp we found that it is located in the occupied West Bank. This individual is not from Gaza or the same Palestinian blogger in Gaza as being claimed on social media.
We found news reports on the boy in the viral hospital video who is 16 years old and his name is Mohammed Zendiq. Zendiq is reported to have lost his leg during an Israeli raid at the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank on July 24, 2023.
We also found a news report dated August 25, 2023 by International Solidarity Movement which has a photo of Zendiq wounded and admitted to the hospital during that time.
The report states that at the time of the Israeli raid, he was standing in the street when he suddenly felt an explosion. Zendiq was then rushed to an Israeli hospital where his right leg was amputated just above the knee and he was released on August 21, 2023.
