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 as a social media post suggests -- and has no connection to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, which began on October 7, 2023.
The claim appeared in a post and video (archived here) published to X (formerly Twitter) by Hananya Naftali on October 26, 2023, under the title "TODAY/YESTERDAY." The post's caption said
Palestinian blogger 'miraculously' healed in one day from 'Israeli bombing'.
Yesterday, he was 'hospitalized,' today, he is walking and walking like nothing happened.
I don't watch Netflix because Pallywood propaganda is the actual comedy.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Oct 27 13:51:13 2023 UTC)
The videos -- No. 1
The side-by-side videos show two different people at two different times. The one on the left is from October 2023 in Gaza and the one on the right is from the West Bank in August 2023, well before the Hamas-Israel conflict began on October 7, 2023.
Through a series of searches on Google, Lead Stories was able to identify the man on the left as Saleh Aljafarawi. Using a screenshot from the post on X, a Google Lens search (archived here) brought us to another video of the same man (archived here) on the Instagram account of Amatullah's Boutique by Jehan. It's embedded below:
The video shows Aljafarawi's name across the bottom third of the screen, which brought Lead Stories to his Instagram account and back to the original version of the video (archived here) from October 25, 2023, which appears below. It matches the video on the left of the post on X:
Aljafarawi's account identifies him as a Palestinian living in Gaza and it features dozens of videos showing the Hamas-Israel conflict.
The videos -- No. 2
Lead Stories found earlier versions of the video on the right side of the post through another Google Lens search (archived here). The oldest postings predate the start of the Hamas-Israel conflict. A video from August 18, 2023, appears below:
@hamodahmdan1 #CapCut #يوكي✨ #ابوشجاع💚✌🏾 #مخيم_نور_شمس_✌️💚 #دحروكي🖤✌️ #عصوم #الشهيدسيف_ابو_لبده✌️ ♬ آيات الشفاء - ابراهيم لشكر
The title of the video, which is in Arabic, translates to: "#CapCut #Yuki✨ #AbuShujaa💚✌🏾 #NourShams_Camp_✌️💚 #Dahrouki🖤✌️ #Asoum #TheMartyrSaif_Abu_Lebdeh✌️." The Nour Shams Camp is not located in Gaza but in the West Bank.
Taking "Nour Shams Camp" from the title and using it in a Google Images search (archived here) with the terms "Nour Shams Camp injuries hospital," Lead Stories found a story with an image showing a similar scene on the International Solidarity Movement website (archived here) with the title "Palestinian child looses leg after Israeli occupation invades Nur Shams Camp."
(Source: International Solidarity Movement screenshot taken on Fri Oct 27 21:14:41 2023 UTC)
The article identifies the injured person as 16-year-old Mohammed Zendiq.
Lead Stories put the images from the TikTok video and the International Solidarity Movement article next to each other to compare them. The injured person, hospital room, equipment and bedding appear to be similar, if not the same in both pictures:
(Source: TikTok and International Solidarity Movement screenshots taken on Fri Oct 27 2023 UTC)
Another TikTok account under the name of Esam Zandek -- the same family name as the victim -- appears to show the two people shown in the "yesterday" video on X. The video's translated title also shares the hashtag "#Nour_Shams_Camp":
@esam_zandek #يوكي✨ #مخيم_نور_شمس #لا_اله_الا_الله_محمد_رسول_الله ♬ الصوت الأصلي - 🖤📿┇ 𝒮𝒶𝓁ℯℯ𝓂 𝒶𝓃ℯ𝓈
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Other Lead Stories fact checks involving the Hamas-Israel conflict can be seen here.
