Old video of Palestinian child being detained shared as recent

By: Vivek J
December 5 2023

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Screenshots of the viral posts purporting to show a video of Israeli forces detaining a Palestinian kid. (Source:X/TikTok/Modified by Logically Facts)

What is the claim?

The ongoing Israel-Hamas war has resulted in the deaths of about 15,000 people in Gaza and Israel combined. Amid this, a video of Israeli security officials detaining a Palestinian child has been shared on social media. The caption of one such post shared on X (formerly Twitter) read, “The invincible army is trying to arrest a two-year-old Palestinian child!!!” The posts did not report when or where this incident took place (archives are here and here). 

Screenshots of the social media posts with a video showing Israeli troops detaining a two/three-year-old kid. (Source: X/Screenshots)

Subsequently, several other social media users have shared the same video, linking it to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, along with hashtags like #Palestine, #Gaza, #Gazawar, #IsraelHamas, and so on. The implication is that the incident took place recently and during the ongoing war (archives of such posts are here, here, here, and here). 

Screenshots of the social media posts linking the viral video to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. (Source: TikTok/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts) 

However, this video is old and unrelated to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. 

What we found

We conducted a reverse image search of multiple keyframes of the viral video and found the video uploaded on YouTube by an Israeli outlet, Haaretz, and Middle East Eye. These videos were uploaded in late March 2018. The caption of the Haaretz video read, “A three-year-old Palestinian boy was detained for a few minutes in Hebron by the police.” Hebron is a Northern Israeli city in the West Bank area. 

(Source: YouTube)

Researching the two YouTube videos through Google led us to news articles reporting the March 2018 incident, including the Haaretz article. It noted that “Border Police officers detained a three-year-old Palestinian boy for a few minutes in Hebron on Tuesday. The police say the boy was sent to throw stones at the officers and then ran at them with a screwdriver and peeler in his hands, calling it a planned provocation.” It further noted that the boy was released shortly after. 

Similarly, another article by Turkey-based Daily Sabah, dated March 28, 2018, also reported the incident in the northern Israeli city of Hebron. Daily Sabah shared the now-viral video on its X account on March 29, 2018. This shows that there was indeed an incident where a three-year-old boy was detained by the Israeli border Police and later released. This, however, is not related to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. 

(Source: X)

Since the war broke out between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, there have been numerous reports of people (including children) being detained or arrested by the Israeli forces in the West Bank region. 

The verdict

The video claiming to show Israeli forces arresting a two-year-old boy is from 2018. This video that shows Israeli border police briefly detaining a three-year-old boy is shared out of context, linking the incident to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.