Hamas Israel

Does a photo on social media show President Joe Biden sunbathing on a beach during the Hamas-Israel conflict and House speaker crisis in October 2023? No, that's not true: The picture shows the president and first lady Jill Biden at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on August 2, 2023. While the first couple did spend the weekend of October 20, 2023 in…

Does a video show individuals setting the Israeli embassy in Bahrain on fire on October 19, 2023? No, that's not true: This video was filmed in 2012. It shows protesters throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station on the Bahraini island of Sitra as part of street violence associated with pro-democracy protests. The claim appeared in a post with an…

Does a video shared on social media show an Israeli police raid on a synagogue to arrest a Jewish youth who supports Palestinian rights in the days following the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023? No, that's not true: The same video was shared on YouTube about 22 months earlier. The clip has nothing to do with the 2023…

Did University of Pennsylvania students chant, "We want Jewish genocide!" at a pro-Palestine rally in Philadelphia? No, that's not true: The chant was, "Israel, Israel, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide." The student group posted a clarification on Instagram after their chant was misrepresented. The claim appeared in a post on Instagram published by @jewishlivesmatter on October 17,…

Did President Joe Biden say he was born in Israel in a speech he made during the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict? No, that's not true: During his speech, Biden explained why he believed Israel was developed. An official transcript records him saying "why it was born," not "where I was born." The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X,…

Did a Wall Street Journal article state that it was "an American MK-84" bomb that hit the Gaza hospital on October 17, 2023? No, that's not true: The newspaper did not publish that. The only supporting "evidence" in the social media post that made this claim was a photo from 1991 unrelated to the October 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict. The claim…

Did Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan say his country may get involved in the Hamas-Israel conflict? No, that's not true: His words as cited in a social media post were both misconstrued and altered. Erdogan did not talk about military intervention -- he called for the world to come together to stop violence in Gaza. The claim originated from a…

Was the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon on fire on October 18, 2023? No, that's not true: According to the caption of a photo from an image hosting site, this fire happened outside the security gates of the embassy. The embassy said in an October 18, 2023, statement it was open for business. The claim appeared on X, formerly Twitter, on…

Does a video show a grieving father cuddling the lifeless body of his toddler who died as a result of the October 2023 Hamas-Israel violence? No, that's not true: The recording predates the October 2023 conflict. It went viral for the first time in 2021 with a description about a sick child being comforted by a pet cat. The story…

Does a video show "pro-Palestine activists" setting fire to a police station in Brussels in October 2023? No, that's not true: The footage is from January 2021, when people in Belgium were protesting police violence after a Black man died while in police custody. The video, published on multiple international news websites in 2021, has nothing to do with the…