Hamas attack on Israel: beware of false images on social networks

Images of the Hamas attack on Israel have been flooding social media since Saturday. While many photos and videos are authentic, others have been backdated or taken out of context.

Hamas terrorists did land in Israel using paragliders. We see this in particular in the videos that emerged after the massacre of 260 civilians who participated in a rave party in the middle of the desert. Among the sequences broadcast on X, we find this one:

In reality, these images were not filmed in Israel and the individuals on the paragliders are not Hamas terrorists. The video is from Egypt. If the video is not dated, Shayan Sardarizadeh, journalist at the BBC, reports on X that it was published in September, a month before the Hamas attack on Israel. And the imposing building is none other than the Cairo Military Academy.

In another video viewed nearly three million times on X, we see an impressive salvo of rockets rising into the sky. But contrary to what the Internet user indicates in the caption, the sequence does not show projectiles fired by Hamas towards Israel last weekend. The footage was filmed during the war in Syria, and was shared online in February 2020.

The video is chilling: young children are locked up, crammed into cages. The very first video, published on TikTok and since deleted, was shared six days ago without any context, date or reference to Hamas and the Gaza Strip... That is, before the attack perpetrated by Hamas. These cannot therefore be children who were among the hostages captured by the terrorist group.

Did residents of Sevran, in Seine-Saint-Denis, really hang Palestinian flags on their windows? A photo relayed on X shows multiple Palestinian flags flying on a building facade. An image that is widely shared, including by political figures such as the RN Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional advisor, Benoît Auguste or the former Minister of European Affairs, Noëlle Lenoir. If this is an authentic image, it has nothing to do with recent events in Israel.

On X, we find similar images shared in May 2021. At the time, clashes between Hamas and Israeli forces lasted around ten days, before a ceasefire was established.

An association leader from Sevran denounced “fake news” by publishing photos of the facade on Monday October 9, empty of Palestinian flags.

Another source of manipulation: that of images taken from video games. Footage shows helicopters presented as Israeli which were allegedly shot down by Palestinians. A pure invention, since it is an image from a military simulation video game. The video has since been reported by Internet users on X. Under the video, the following now appears: “The video comes from the video game Arma III. These are not images of real life.

A diversion which has several precedents, notably in the war in Ukraine.