Video shows protest in Egypt in 2013, not Palestinians faking deaths

Published on November 7, 2023 at 08:05
Updated on November 9, 2023 at 06:56
3 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

Thousands of civilians have been killed on both sides of the war between Israel and Hamas, which was triggered by a deadly cross-border attack by the Islamist militants on October 7, 2023. But a video of people covered in shrouds posing as corpses does not show Palestinians staging deaths. The journalist who filmed the video told AFP it in fact shows a protest in Egypt's capital Cairo in 2013.

"What type of shroud have they used to cover these bodies that allows them to come back to life and scratch themselves? These Palestinians are a dramatic bunch," reads the Hindi-language caption of a video shared here on X, formerly Twitter, on October 28.

The video appears to show several people posing as dead bodies, lying side-by-side on the ground and each covered with a white sheet with Arabic writing on it.

While most of the people remain still, some can be seen fidgeting as the camera pans across them.

War between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, after the Palestinian militant group carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 230 hostage, according to Israeli officials.

Since then, Israel has relentlessly bombarded Gaza and sent in ground troops in an assault that the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says has killed more that 10,000 people -- 4,000 of them children.

Screenshot of the false post, taken on October 31, 2023

The video was also shared with similar claims elsewhere on Facebook here and here and on X here.

While the video genuinely shows people posing as corpses, it is unrelated to the war between Israel and Hamas.

Egypt protest

A combination of reverse image and keyword searches on Google found a longer version of the video uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Egyptian newspaper El-Badil on October 28, 2013 (archived link).

The video's Arabic-language title reads: "A representation of dead bodies inside Al-Azhar University".

The video's description says it was part of a demonstration staged by dozens of students from the Muslim Brotherhood at Al-Azhar University, and they chanted slogans against the army and the police.

Universities in Egypt turned into "protest hubs" after then-president Mohamed Morsi, who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was toppled in a military coup in July 2013, triggered by massive demonstrations against his year-long rule.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (left) and the video uploaded on El-Badil's YouTube channel (right):

Screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (left) and the video uploaded on El-Badil's YouTube channel (right)

The video is credited to multimedia journalist Mostafa Darwish.

"I filmed this video for El-Badil newspaper back in 2013," he told AFP on November 2.

A similar video of the same protest, shot from a different angle, was uploaded on YouTube by Akhbar Al yom TV (archived link).

November 9, 2023 This article was amended to correct the date of coup in paragraph 12.

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