Old photos of rescued Syrian girl falsely shared as 'Hamas crisis actor'
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 8, 2023 at 09:54
- 5 min read
- By Nahiara S. ALONSO, AFP USA, AFP India
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"The same girl is being saved thrice by three different people. Oscar for the best child actor goes to," reads a post shared on October 28 on X, formerly Twitter.
It is accompanied by a three-picture collage showing a child covered in dust being rescued from a ruined building.
Another post featuring the same collage says it shows "Hamas stage acting".
Hamas militants stormed into Israel from Gaza on October 7, taking around 240 hostages according to Israel and killing some 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
Israel's retaliatory strikes have killed over 10,000 people, many of them children in the densely populated and besieged Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned on November 6 the coastal strip was becoming a "graveyard for children," as he urged an immediate ceasefire.
The same collage has also been shared widely in Hindi, Spanish and Chinese-language social media posts that make a similar false claim it shows a staged rescue.
However, the pictures actually show a girl in Syria being rescued after an air strike in 2016.
AFP has repeatedly debunked posts claiming they show a staged scene.
'Fastest way'
The pictures were all taken on the same day, August 27, 2016, in the Maadi district of Aleppo. All three were captured by Ameer al-Halbi, then a freelance photographer for AFP in Syria (archived link).
They depict the aftermath of a reported air strike by government forces that left at least 15 people dead. The photographer took 16 pictures in total as shown in the AFP Forum website below:
On four of the pictures, the same girl can be identified passing through the arms of three different men during the rescue operation: a volunteer rescue worker from the Syrian White Helmets humanitarian organisation, a man in a checked shirt and a rescue worker in yellow.
In an AFP video report from October 2022 also debunking false claims about the photos, al-Halbi explains: "There are many people who help the White Helmets to get the victims out and sometimes it's complicated. The car that has come to take them, these injured people, to the hospital cannot go all the way to meet them.
"So there are people who will pass the child to someone who will pass them to the next person. Really it's just the fastest way."
Below are the AFP originals of the three photos shared in the false posts. Their captions all say they were taken in the Maadi district of eastern Aleppo after regime aircraft reportedly dropped explosive-packed barrel bombs on August 27, 2016.
At least 15 civilians were reported killed when two bombs fell several minutes apart, near a tent where people were receiving condolences for those killed this week. ( AMEER AL-HALBI / AFP)
At least 15 civilians were reported killed when two bombs fell several minutes apart, near a tent where people were receiving condolences for those killed this week. ( AMEER AL-HALBI / AFP)
A photographer for Reuters news agency was also present in the scene and took photos of the same injured girl here and here.
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