Does a photo show American soldiers praying in 2023 "before being deployed to defend Israel"? No, that's not true: At the time of writing, U.S. soldiers were not deployed to Israel. This photo was posted on social media in 2017, six years before the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict began. The 2017 post described it as "soldiers praying together after a Chapel service in Fort Benning, Georgia."
The claim appeared on Facebook (archived here) on November 3, 2023. The caption read:
American soldiers praying for their country, for Israel 🇮🇱 before being deployed to defend Israel. If you believe God answered their prayers say amen 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Nov 8 16:14:04 2023 UTC)
The photo was posted on social media at least six years before the start of the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict. Lead Stories found the image on Facebook in a post (archived here) from October 11, 2017. The caption read:
Powerful image of U. S. Soldiers praying together after a Chapel service in Fort Benning, Georgia. #RealMenPray
There was no mention in that post of deployment of U.S. troops anywhere abroad.
A Google News search of the phrase, "American soldiers AND deployed to Israel AND 2023" (archived here) did not yield any relevant results.
Other Lead Stories articles on the Hamas-Israel 2023 conflict are here.
