Does a video of a baby with medical tubes and sensors attached to their body show the consequences from conflict in Gaza for Palestinian children in 2023? No, that's not true: The footage in a post making that implication predates the 2023 Hamas-Israel war. The video comes from an account of an American family documenting the journey of their baby son who had to face life-threatening health conditions early in his life.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X, formerly known as Twitter, on December 19, 2023. The caption was:
THIS IS TERRORISM.
The text embedded in the shared video continued:
Save the children of Gaza
call for a ceasefire now
Free Palestine 🇵🇸
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Dec 19 15:49:28 2023 UTC)
The timing of the post and the references to cease-fire, "Free Palestine" and Gaza imply that the medical condition of the infant is a result of the war.
A reverse image search, however, shows that the footage was first posted online in an unrelated context before the Hamas-Israel war began on October 7, 2023.
One of the early examples (archived here) found by Lead Stories that is still available online was uploaded on TikTok on September 29, 2023.
As translated by Chrome from German, the caption said:
It must be terrible to see your child suffering like that#excepthope and pray nothing can be done# you feel so powerless and desperate#GoodThank you medicine was able to help ❤
At the 0:18 mark, the embedded German text stated, as translated by Google:
He was born terminally ill, his mother sat with him day and night, hoping and praying.
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Dec 19 16:16:50 2023; page was automatically translated by Chrome)
A deeper inquiry showed that the German-language account was likely to have reposted the footage from an English-language Instagram reel that had been published more than a month prior:
(Source: Google screenshot taken on Tue Dec 19 16:39:01 2023 UTC)
As of this writing, the reel seen in the screenshot above was not available but Lead Stories reviewed that account on Instagram. It documented the journey of a U.S.-based family trying to keep alive their baby boy, born with serious medical conditions.
One shot from the original reel that was taken out of context for the Gaza-related claim reappeared in a different video posted online by the same family on September 25, 2023:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Tue Dec 19 17:03:20 2023 UTC)
At the end of this reel -- two weeks before the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that started this round of escalation -- the baby, still wearing a shirt with a hospital logo on it, was seen smiling and looking much healthier. There were no medical devices attached to his body.
In a different video posted on November 30, 2023, the baby was filmed on the porch of what looked like a private home. He was being held by a woman, and the child was smiling.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict can be found here.
