While the Israel-Palestine conflict rages on, an image has gone viral on social media with the claim that it shows Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas. Hamas is an armed Palestinian group and political movement in the Gaza Strip.
Israel bombed Gaza again on September 24, killing at least 85 people, including in a strike on a stadium sheltering displaced families. Despite appeals from global leaders for a ceasefire, the attacks persist.
The image shows a group of children in distress, with one of them putting their palms together and crying.
The text embedded in the image reads, “Hamas declared jihad by slitting the throats of these kidnapped children from Israel.” (Translated from Malayalam)
The image is shared with a caption that reads, “No leftist, rightist, commi and Kongi were hurt. The world is not seeing this.” (Translated from Malayalam)
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. The viral image shows kids in Palestine after an Israeli missile attack.
On a Google reverse image search, we found that the same image was shared by a website, Fair Planet, on July 21, 2014.
The image was shared with an editorial article that calls for governments and businesses to stop financing the Israel-Palestine conflict, arguing that economic pressure, divesting from arms suppliers and withdrawing investments can disrupt violence more effectively than diplomatic statements alone.
Another article shared by The Ecologist also shared the same image with a caption that reads, “Children in fear, Gaza. Source: unknown.”
The article associated with the image in which the author, Heathcote Williams, argues that Gaza has become both a testing ground and a market for Israeli military tech. Civilian deaths, especially children, are normalised, while Israeli arms firms profit hugely from the destruction and conflict.
The image was also shared by a website called CCUN. A series of images was shared on the webpage with the title ‘Al-Jazeerah: Cross-Cultural Understanding’. The caption associated with the images read, “101 Palestinians Killed, 676 Injured, Overwhelming Majority of them Civilians, By Israeli War-Criminal Air Strikes on Gaza, as of July 11, 2014.”
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral image is old.
