The video of Israeli children in cages is extremely shocking and has been widely shared on social media – but it is false. Like so many other videos about the conflict in the Middle East that children use for misinformation. #TheCube followed.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Since Hamas militants invaded Israel on October 7, social media has been flooded with a flood of videos and photos, making it difficult for users to distinguish fact from fiction.
Children can often be seen in many of the videos. We took a closer look at misinformation with kids – and got to the bottom of the facts.
In any conflict or unprecedented event, children can become targets and objects of disinformation.
The first viral video we discovered was shared hundreds of thousands of times. Reportedly shows a Palestinian child in Gaza crying after an Israeli army attack.
However, after a reverse image search, we found the original YouTube video, which is actually from 2014.
According to the caption, the video was filmed in Homs, Syria, and shows a boy crying after his sister’s death.
The next video is extremely shocking, but it also ends up being misleading.
It says it shows Israeli children kidnapped and held in cages in Gaza.
When we first saw the video, some details made us question its legitimacy.
One thing we noticed was that the cages are not locked. And the tone of the man behind the camera is also a little strange.
According to FakeReporter, an Israeli fact-checking website, the original TikTok video was posted three days before the Hamas offensive began on October 7.
However, the account was suspended for a few days and the video was deleted.
Spanish website Maldita found a second video of the same children, this time sitting in front of a house, published on the same TikTok account on October 8 and later deleted.
A few days ago, the account that posted the original video was restored. The man behind this released a video in which he clarifies that the children are in fact his relatives and have nothing to do with the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
More than a million people have fled their homes in the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive.
The conflict became the deadliest of the five wars in Gaza for both sides. According to UNICEF, more than 4,000 people were killed, including hundreds of children.