By: Annet Preethi Furtado
March 20 2024
BTS footage of ad highlighting condition of Gaza shared with ‘Pallywood’ narrative
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Screenshot of a social media post with captions claiming that the video shows a 'Pallywood' production in Gaza. (Source: X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)
Fact-Check
The Verdict False
The clip is from the filming of an ad for Ramadan and has been shared as a "Pallywood production," wrongly insinuating that it shows a crisis actor.
Claim ID aeb9732d
What's the claim?
A 17-second-long video of a boy standing amid rubble while a film crew shoots him is going viral on social media with the claim that the clip shows a "Pallywood production," alleging that Gazans were orchestrating such footage of devastation amid the ongoing war by Israel against Palestine. Captions accompanying the video, which includes an Arabic soundtrack playing in the background, included phrases such as: "Rare 'behind the scenes' footage of a Pallywood production," and "Gaza Welcome to PallyWood."
The video is one of the many visuals several social media have shared to allege that they depict "behind-the-scenes" footage of supposed 'Pallywood' productions. This phenomenon, known as the 'Pallywood' campaign, involves the dissemination of images aimed at suggesting that Palestinians are faking their suffering and even deaths amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
Some users also shared the viral video with captions like: "This is Hamas staged media at its worst. It's a fake scene, and this was taken 4!!! And these kids go from scene to scene!!" One of the posts sharing the clip had amassed 97,800 views. Archived versions of such posts can be found here, here, and here.
Screenshot of X and Facebook posts. Source: X/Facebook/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)
However, the footage actually shows behind-the-scenes footage from an advertisement for the Palestinian telecommunications company Jawwal, which sought to highlight the state of Palestine amid Ramadan.
What did we find?
Through a reverse image search, we found a video posted on YouTube by Jawwal, a telecommunications company in Palestine. The video, titled "You will enlighten the world in us - Ramadan 2024 mobile advertisement," spans 2 minutes and 11 seconds and has the identical soundtrack heard in the viral clip.
(Source: YouTube)
This video has been prominently shared across Jawwal's official Instagram and Facebook platforms.
(Source: Instagram)
At the 1 minute and 20-second mark of the YouTube video posted by the company, we spotted the boy wearing the same outfit — a greenish zip-up jacket with a black turtleneck — as seen in the viral clip, with rubble in the background.
Comparison of a screenshot from the viral video with the footage posted by Jawwal on YouTube shows the same outfit worn by the boy. (Source: X/YouTube/Modified by Logically Facts)
We watched the full YouTube video and noted that it is clearly an advertisement for the company Jawwal, released ahead of Ramadan, which seeks to highlight the events in Gaza and the suffering of Palestinians during the holy month amid the ongoing conflict.
Palestinian media organization Tahaqaq reached out to Omar Rammal, the director of the video, who said that the video was shot in Jordan, not Gaza, and added that the scenes had been shot and constructed to reflect the reality of Gaza. The aim of the ad was to draw attention to the suffering of Gazans.
The behind-the-scene visuals of this ad have been falsely shared to claim that Gazans are faking their devastation.
Logically Facts has also contacted Jawwal for comment, and this fact-check will be updated if and when we receive a response.
Logically Facts has debunked several instances where unrelated images and videos were misused to support the dehumanizing Pallywood narrative.
The verdict
The viral video depicts BTS footage from filming an advertisement for the Palestinian Telecommunications Company' Jawwal.' It does not show Palestinians orchestrating footage of casualties and devastation among the rubble.
