Did the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees put a black band across its profile image on X to grieve the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar? No, that's not true: The band was on the image for months before Sinwar's death, according to archived pages of the account and to the agency. An agency spokesperson told Lead Stories that the black ribbon is there to honor killed colleagues.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, on October 17, 2024. The post included a screenshot of the X profile of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). It read:
UNRWA has put a black band across its profile image to grieve for Sinwar. Just in case it was unclear what the UN is.
This is what the post looked like on social media at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Oct 18 08:48:52 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories searched archive websites to find previous versions of UNRWA's X profile. Its profile pictures show the black ribbon for months before Sinwar's death, which international news media reported on October 17, 2024. For example, the ribbon appeared in UNRWA's profile picture on October 14, 2024, September 11, 2024, August 21, 2024, July 6, 2024, and February 25, 2024.
Lead Stories also contacted UNRWA to ask about the claim. The agency confirmed the black ribbon was not added to its profile to grieve Sinwar's death and explained why it's there. In an email, dated October 18, 2024, spokeswoman Juliette Touma wrote:
The black ribbon is in tribute to the UNRWA colleagues we lost = 229 of them to date
