No evidence that a video features a doll rather than a dead child in Gaza
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 18, 2023 at 19:08
- Updated on October 19, 2023 at 16:42
- 10 min read
- By AFP France
- Translation and adaptation Simon MORGAN
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In the worst attack in Israel's 75-year history, Palestinian Hamas militants burst through Israel's heavily fortified Gaza border on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,400 people inside the country, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Israel has carried out bombardments that, as of October 18, 2023, have killed more than 3,000 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-controlled territory. Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and is seeking to rescue at least 199 hostages taken into Gaza by the Islamist group. Israel has deployed tens of thousands of troops in preparation for a full-scale ground offensive in Gaza.
The young boy in the video, eyes closed and wrapped in a shroud, has come to be seen as a symbol of the civilian deaths. Israel quickly claimed that the images were staged by Hamas.
"Hamas accidentally posted a video of a doll (yes a doll) suggesting that it was a part of casualties caused by an IDF attack," the Israeli government wrote in English on its official account on X, formerly Twitter on October 13, 2023, and on Instagram.
"Hamas accidentally published a video of a doll (yes, a doll), staged in a way to make it look like a baby had died as a result of Israeli strikes...", Israel's embassy in France posted in French on its own X account on the same day.
The video was shared as "disgusting propaganda" and a "hoax" by tens of thousands of pro-Israeli accounts, such as Yoseph Addad or "StopAntisemitism", drawing a number of hate-filled responses by other users.
Where does the video come from?
The earliest instance of the video found by AFP was October 12, 2023 on the Instagram account of the Palestinian photographer Momen El Halabi.
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The journalist has been covering the events since October 7, 2023, publishing many photos of Palestinians injured in the Israeli strikes on his Instagram account.
The footage posted by El Halabi is longer and of better quality than the version shared by the Israeli accounts on X. A first sequence shows a man in a white vest taking a crying, dust-covered little girl from a car parked outside a hospital A&E department and placing her on a blue stretcher before she is taken inside. Another man runs behind the stretcher holding another child in his arms.
A second sequence then shows the inert body of a young boy, with a waxy complexion and closed eyes wrapped in a white shroud, as he is placed on a table. His face is covered in scars. His body is held by a man wearing a grey Ralph Lauren polo shirt. He then passes the body to another man wearing a red T-shirt, who kisses the boy on the forehead.
It's a screenshot of the image of this boy which has been shared by many pro-Israeli accounts claiming that it is a doll, with a red circle around the face.
Ambulances visible in the background reveal that the sequence was filmed outside the A&E department of Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, as seen from the entrance sign.
Since October 7, 2023, AFP has published lots of photos of victims arriving at Al-Shifa hospital. In these photos we can see the building visible in the background of the video posted by El Halabi, as shown in the comparison below.
In contrast to the posts alleging that the footage was "accidentally" published by Hamas, it appears to have been first shared intentionally by El Halabi, and is still visible on his account. On Instagram, the date and time of publication of a photo or video is not immediately visible, merely the number of days since the post was published. However, it is possible to find this information in the page's source code by right-clicking on the page in Google Chrome and then clicking on "inspect".
A tab then opens on the right-hand side of the browser, showing the same web page, but in the form of lines of code. This text shows the date and time of publication in GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), opposite the word "datetime".
According to these data, the video was published by the Palestinian photographer on October 12, 2023 at 13:59 GMT or 15:59 CET (Central European Time).
It was only later that the video was posted on the Hamas Telegram channel, in a message published on October 12, 2023 at 20:40 CET with a caption in Arabic saying that children are "the target of the occupation", adding: "Harrowing scenes at the Al-Shifa medical complex today". It was then reposted again on October 17, 2023.
Since the attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Israel has launched a sustained bombardment of Gaza, where entire tower blocks have been destroyed.
On October 12, 2023, AFP reported on the chaos in al-Shifa hospital following the raids, describing how many Palestinians were looking for their relatives outside the hospital mortuary.
In this context, an AFP photographer published a picture of the same boy and the man in the Ralph Lauren polo shirt who appear in El Halabi's video, with the caption: "A Palestinian man holds a child wrapped in a shroud during the funeral, as raging battles between Israel and the Hamas movement continue for the sixth consecutive day in Gaza City on October 12, 2023."
When asked by AFP on October 17, 2023, Mohammed Abed, the author of the photos, explained the context in which he had taken them.
"This photo was taken at Al-Shifa Hospital, next to the morgue, where victims were kept. Of course, they were taken out of the morgue so that their parents could kiss them while waiting for the car that would transport them to the cemetery. In this photo, the man stood holding the child in his arms, next to the body of another person lying on the ground. The child's face is very clear," the photographer said.
"This is the corpse of a real child, a victim killed in bombardment (air strikes), definitely not a doll," he said.
Palestinian videoographer Momen El Halabi told "Checknews" -- which also devoted a verification article (archive here) to this video -- on October 16, 2023 that the child in the photos was four years old, called Omar Bilal Al-Banna and came from the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood in the east of Gaza City.
AFP was unable to verify this information, however, due to the continuing bombardments and the deaths of a very large number of civilians, which made it difficult to identify the victims.
AFP photos from October 12, 2023 show corpses lined up outside the hospital morgue.
Mohammed Abed also took around 20 other shots of the child and the man showing the same scene. But AFP did not publish these on October 12, 2023. The child is recognisable by the wounds on his face.
The man in the grey polo shirt was also photographed by the Times of Gaza website on the same day.
Update: 1417 Palestinians killed, including 447 children and 248 women, while more than 6000 others are injured. pic.twitter.com/fm7nURYdjX
— TIMES OF GAZA (@Timesofgaza) October 12, 2023
A number of Internet users who posted the video of the child express surprise that cotton appears to be visible in his mouth, arguing that it backed up the theory that the video showed a doll.
However, Moussa Abou Ramadan, professor of Muslim law and Islamic Studies at Strasbourg University, told AFP on October 17, 2023 that this was common practice. "Among Muslims, they wash (the corpse), cover it with the shroud, and put cotton in the nose and ears. This is the Palestinian custom."
"We then bid farewell to the deceased. After the body has been washed, the shroud put on, etc. In Palestine, people pass by and kiss the body goodbye, whether it's a child or an adult... That's the practice, it's not in the religious texts", he said.
Children have found themselves at the heart of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Content warning
Another hospital in Gaza was hit on October 17, 2023 by a strike that, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-controlled enclave on October 18, 2023, killed at least 471 people.
Hamas charged that Israel hit the hospital during its massive bombing campaign while Israel blamed a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket. Neither the provenance of the strike nor the death toll could be immediately or independently verified. The strike left scores of bodies and charred cars at the Ahli Arab hospital compound in northern Gaza, AFP images showed.
A senior European intelligence source told AFP that he believed a maximum of 50 people were killed. An Israeli army spokesman has also disputed Hamas's figure of 471 dead.
October 19, 2023 Clarifies details about October 17 missile strike on Gaza hospital in final three paragraphs
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