Is there a "Balfour lease" for Israel that expired on October 31, 2023? No, that's not true: Israel's creation did not stem from any agreement indicating that its land is temporary. There is a Balfour Declaration, a statement made by the British government in 1917 that set the stage for Israel to become a country; however, the declaration did not…
Did Yemen officially declare war on Israel in October 2023? No, that's not true: No credible sources have reported that as of November 1, 2023. Posts on social media making the claim misrepresented the role of the Houthi movement, which tried to launch drones and missiles targeting Israel in October 2023. This group is not internationally recognized as Yemen's government.…
Does a video on X show Hamas crisis actors pretending to be Palestinian corpses in October 2023? No, that's not true: This video was originally posted on YouTube in 2013. It shows students protesting at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, featuring a display of "corpses" represented by actors. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X, formerly…
Did protesters in Washington, D.C., riot and rush people into a house on October 28, 2023, as a video on Instagram claims to show? No, that's not true: The video is from a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest. The homeowner told television station WUSA9 at the time that he invited the protesters into his home to wait out a curfew.…
Does a viral social media video show an Iranian attack on a "petrol pump" in Israel in 2023? No, that's not true: The footage is from 2014 and showed an explosion at a gas station in Makhachkala, capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan. The explosion did not happen during the October 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict. It occurred years earlier and…
Did Russian President Vladimir Putin declare in October 2023 that the Kremlin will "openly help to Palestine"? No, that's not true: The footage on social media used to make the claim is a clip from a 2021 recording of Putin speaking at Russia's Victory Day parade. The video predates the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict by more than two years. Putin makes…
Was the same Palestinian child used to stage fake rescue photos from three separate Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip on the same day in October 2023? No, that's not true: These three photos were taken in Aleppo, Syria, on August 27, 2016, by photojournalist Ameer Alhalbi. These photos are unrelated to the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict. In the aftermath of…
Did McDonald's change its food wrappers to blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, in support of Israel during the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict? No, that's not true: The fast food chain told Lead Stories that the wrappers were not intended to make a political statement. They come in a variety of colors, not just blue and white, and…
Does a set of nearly-identical videos on social media depict Israeli law enforcement grappling with people in October 2023 in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip or Jerusalem? No, that's not true: The footage was first posted online in April 2023. It shows clashes with Christian pilgrims in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, not in Gaza and predates the Hamas-Israel war by more than…
Did a "Hamas crisis actor" fake a video during the Hamas-Israel conflict in October 2023 that showed him hospitalized one day and walking around OK the next? No, that's not true: The side-by-side videos on social media show two different people. Additionally, one of the videos was shot more than a month earlier -- not the day before the other…
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