Israel-Hamas war triggers disinformation on the networks

Several months after being discharged from the hospital, with a leg amputated, Mohammed Zendiq discovered his photo circulating on social networks as an alleged victim of the war ongoing between Israel and Hamas, which has triggered disinformation.

Each side tries to demonize the other or gain the empathy of internet users with often manipulated images.

In the case of Zendiq, a 16-year-old Palestinian, an old video of him in a hospital bed reappeared on the networks, claiming that he was a Palestinian blogger reporting on the Israeli bombings in Gaza.

Other publications even claimed that the blogger faked his injuries because there are images that show him shortly afterwards supposedly unharmed.

A Palestinian blogger was curedmiraculously“on a day of a”Israeli bombing”wrote an Israeli influencer in a message seen millions of times on the X network.

But the people who appear in the images are not the same, AFP verifications demonstrated through reverse image and keyword searches.

This manipulation earned the young amputee an avalanche of hateful comments. “I fear for my son’s life“His father, Yusef Isam Fandqah, 50, told AFP. “I could be killed for this lie”.

“Pallywood”

Falsely accusing people of faking their suffering has become “one of the most predictable disinformation tactics” in a context of crisis, says Mike Caulfield, an expert in online disinformation at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington.

Since the war between Israel and Hamas began, the term “pallywood”, a derogatory name that mixes “Palestine” and “Hollywood”.

“This trend appeared from the early days of the war, with a video revealing an alleged film set claiming that Palestinians were ‘fabricating’ wounds there.”said Yotam Frost of Israeli disinformation watchdog FakeReporter.

There is also disinformation to defame Israelis, he points out.

Several official Israeli accounts on X, including embassies, falsely claimed that a video of a dead Palestinian child actually showed a doll wrapped in cloth.

There were also images of a protest in Egypt in 2013 and a funeral preparation course in Malaysia that were presented as images of Palestinians staging their own deaths.

These stories “They often take the worst moment in a parent or partner’s life, the loss of a loved one, and turn it into a circus. It’s cruel and it’s exploitation.” says Caulfield.

After more than a month of war, Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip have left 11,240 dead, mostly civilians, including 4,630 children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.

On the Israeli side, around 1,200 people were killed, according to authorities, the vast majority of them civilians killed on October 7, the day of the Hamas attack on Israel.

“If we believe that these deaths are staged, we become more insensitive or skeptical about the atrocities of war.”warns Alessandro Accorsi, analyst at the International Crisis Group.

In addition to this aspectvery dehumanizing”, the manipulations aim “sow doubt about civilian deaths in general and gather support for more violence and attacks”, he assures.