An image is being widely shared on social media in which a person is seen rescuing a girl child stuck under rubble.
The image is being linked to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict with the claim that the girl is a Palestinian stuck under the rubble in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike.
A social media user shared the image with a caption that reads, “PALESTINIAN CHILD STUCK UNDER THE RUBBLE AFTER ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE. (sic)”
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. We found that the image is of the Turkey-Syria earthquake in 2023.
On doing a Google reverse image search, we found the same image uploaded on a Spanish website on February 9, 2023. The caption with the image stated that a 5-year-old Hazal was pulled out of the rubble of a building in Turkey’s Hatay province, 72 hours after the earthquake.
The article titled ‘Children cling to life amid Türkiye’s rubble’ has a collection of images and videos of many such trapped children being freed from the destruction caused by the earthquake.
The video of her rescue was also shared by an X handle on February 10, 2023.
India Today also published the image on February 9, 2023, in the article ‘Turkey-Syria Quake: Pictures tell the tale of death and destruction’.
The caption associated with the image read, “Mousa Zidane, a photographer who is also working as a rescue worker with White Helmets in Syria, saved this small girl’s life after 50 hours of persistent digging. After noticing the rescue workers, the child’s eyes sparkled with hope and longing for survival.”
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral image is of the Turkey earthquake and not of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.