November 14, 2023
As the Israel-Hamas war rages on and Tel Aviv's military shows its might by indiscriminately targeting civilians and hospitals, misinformation is also on the rise — seemingly pushed by pro-Israeli people.
During a major event like an armed conflict, many social media users share misleading or baseless claims, including miscaptioned imagery or altered documents, in an effort to shape public perception.
This included fake footage of women being assaulted after their demise, Hamas 'parachute gliders' — which was in fact an old video of Egyptian paragliders — and so many other video clips, including the famous 40 babies.
But the latest one has got people in fits and anger as this was shared by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) — showing that they're pushing propaganda at the state level.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the IDF said its spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari walked through one of "Hamas' subterranean terrorist tunnels — only to exit in Gaza's Rantisi hospital on the other side".
"Inside these tunnels, Hamas [...] hide, operate, and hold Israeli hostages against their will," it said in the post.
The fun begins now.
As the IDF spokesperson made it through the place, he arrived in a room that he claimed was where the Hamas members kept the hostages — who were abducted on October 7, when the group attacked Israel.
"We are in an operation [...] against Israel," the spokesperson said, pointing out at a calendar that was nailed to the wall.
He further described it as a "guarding list where every terrorist writes his name and every terrorist has his own shift guarding the people that were here".
As the Israeli military posted the video on its X account, people were quick to point out that they needed to learn Arabic since they were surrounded by Arabic-speaking nations.
Fact checker Mohammad Zubair pointed out that the calendar just has days written on it, nothing more.
With the war nowhere near stopping, there will be more instances where people will share unverified claims — but that's when we should understand that no information should be consumed as is and we need to cross-check things coming in.