One sensitive photo purporting to show children’s packed dead bodies lying down has been circulated; it depicts Palestinian children killed in Israeli airstrikes during the ongoing conflict.
Some verified profiles on X, inlcuding Sulaiman Ahmed (“@ShaykhSulaiman“) shared the picture and wrote “CHILD GENOCIDE IN PALESTINE 614 Palestinian children murdered by the Israeli IOF Forces #Gazagenocide“.
Many other accounts like “@AyaIsleemEn” and “@ferasabed8” also claimed the same in their twitter post.
Truth About the Picture: Fact
The truth is that this is an old photo from August 2013, when chemical weapons killed these children in Syria. The ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza is unrelated to it.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC published an article on September 14, 2013 sharing the same picture with the caption ” Children lie among the dead outside of Damascus, Syria, on August 21 shortly after they succumbed to chemical weapon poisoning.”
An article by FP also wrote that according to a senior Western official, U.N. inspectors have gathered a “wealth” of evidence on the use of nerve agents that suggests Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. The American ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, shared a montage of videos on her Twitter page showing gruesome images of alleged victims gasping for air and writhing in pain. White sheets covered the tiny bodies of rows of dead children, their faces blue from apparent suffocation, as they were arranged in gruesome rows.
D-Intent’s Fact-Checking Results:
1207
— D-Intent Data (@dintentdata) October 14, 2023
ANALYSIS: Misleading
FACT: A sensitive image that shows packed dead bodies of children lying down has been shared, claiming to be of Palestinian children killed in Israeli strikes in the ongoing conflict. The fact is that this is an old image from Syria, (1/2) pic.twitter.com/u9poXq03tK
Intent:
Old photos from Syria that falsely identify as from Palestine are being circulated by propaganda accounts in an effort to defame Israel.
Conclusion:
Claim: A graphic photo purportedly depicting the bodies of children lying down in a packed state, taken during an Israeli strike on Palestinian children during the ongoing conflict, has been circulated.
Fact: The fact is that it is an old image from Syria, where these children died due to chemical weapons in August 2013.
