By: Emmi Kivi
October 31 2023
A hospitalized Palestinian man falsely described as an 'actor' feigning injury
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Social media posts falsely claiming video shows a Palestinian 'actor' feigning an injury. (Source: TikTok/Screenshots/Logically Facts)
Fact-Check
The Verdict False
The video dates back to July when a Palestinian man lost a leg in a reported Israeli raid on the West Bank.
Claim ID 15ac6c62
What is the claim?
As the Israel-Hamas war enters its third week, the death toll has exceeded 8,000 in Gaza, according to its health ministry, and 1,400 in Israel, as per official estimates.
While the official number of casualties remains unconfirmed, throughout the war, a section of social media users have denied the civilian harm caused by it and disseminated erroneous claims of Palestinian 'crisis actors.' Some users are disseminating a video of a hospitalized man, claiming it to show a Palestinian 'actor' feigning injury. Such posts claim that Hamas is using crisis actors in the war with Israel.
However, Logically Facts found that the video is not connected to the current Israel-Hamas war and was captured months before it started.
What did we find?
A reverse image search led to a TikTok post with the same visual. The posts date back to August and predate the current war.
The caption of the August TikTok video includes the hashtag "#NourShams_Camp_" (translated from Arabic). The Nur Shams refugee camp is located in the northern West Bank, not Gaza.
With this information, Logically Facts conducted a Google search for reported injuries in Nur Shams Camp. This search led us to a news story by the International Solidarity Movement from August 2023 that was titled, "Palestinian child loses leg after Israeli occupation invades Nur Shams Camp." The image of the hospitalized man published in the report matches the footage in the viral claim.
(Source: International Solidarity Movement website)
According to the report, the image is of 16-year-old Mohammed Zendiq, who lost his leg after a reported Israeli incursion of the Nur Shams Camp in the West Bank on July 24. The image is not from the recent Israel-Hamas war and does not show a Palestinian 'actor.'
Logically Facts continues to monitor and cover misleading and erroneous claims as they emerge.
The verdict
The video does not show a Palestinian 'actor' but features Mohammed Zendiq, injured after a reported Israeli incursion of the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank on July 24. The video of the hospitalized man is not connected to the current war and predates it. Therefore, we marked the claim as false.