Video of Catholic festival in Portugal falsely shared as 'people displaced by Israel-Hamas war'
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 24, 2023 at 06:37
- 4 min read
- By Panisa AEMOCHA, AFP Thailand
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The 30-second clip was shared on TikTok on October 12, where it has more than 319,000 views.
The caption includes hashtags linking it to the Israel-Hamas war, such as "#Israel_News #Today_News #Israel #Palestine #GazaStrip #IsraelVsPalestine".
Sticker text on the video says in Thai: "This video has no description. Let the image tell all of my feelings."
The post circulated days after Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, taking around 240 hostages and killing another 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Israeli authorities say.
Israel has since retaliated with a relentless bombardment of Gaza that the Hamas-led health ministry says has killed more than 14,000 people, among them 5,800 children.
The strikes have forced 1.7 million of Gaza's 2.4 million population to flee their homes in the north of the territory, only to be met with an acute humanitarian crisis in the south where food and water are in short supply.
The video was shared alongside the false claim it shows the "millions of displaced" elsewhere on TikTok here. It was also shared with similar false claims in English and Japanese.
Social media users left comments indicating they believed the clip showed displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
"The way they sleep is worse than in prison," reads one comment.
Another wrote: "Hope everyone is safe".
But reverse image searches found the video was first shared in August 2023, two months before the war, and shows a Catholic event in Portugal.
World Youth Day
A Google reverse image search using a keyframe from the video found it corresponds to a clip posted by a user called "Solo Catacumenos" on both TikTok and YouTube on August 6, 2023 (archived links here and here).
The original footage is just 16-seconds long, indicating the video shared in the false posts has been slowed down.
The video's Spanish-language description reads: "This is how a million and a half young people spent the night in #Lisbon". The caption includes the Spanish-language hashtag "World Youth Day 2023" and "Pope Francis".
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the clip shared on YouTube by Solo Catacumenos (right):
World Youth Day is a celebration of the Catholic faith aimed at young people, held every two or three years at different locations globally (archived link).
Catholic media said more than 350,000 people registered to attend this year's Lisbon event between August 1 and 6, but reported at least 1.5 million young people gathered for the pope's closing remarks for World Youth Day (archived links here, here and here).
Subsequent Google reverse image searches found a similar image published on the website of stock photo company Getty Images (archived link).
The photo is credited to photographer Miguel A. Lopes. It is captioned: "AUGUST 6: Pilgrims rest ahead of a holy mass led by Pope Francis on the last day of World Youth Day (WYD) at Parque Tejo on August 6, 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal" .
Lopes, a Lusa News Agency photographer based in Portugal, told AFP on November 13 that he "took this photo when the pope visited Portugal".
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the image from Getty Images (right), with the corresponding similarities marked by AFP:
The Getty Images photo caption and the World Youth Day website state the event on August 6 was held at the Tejo-Trancão Park in Lisbon, Portugal (archived link).
A photo of the park at night uploaded to Google Maps in August 2023 shows the same spotlights seen in the video (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video of the sleeping pilgrims (left) and the Google Maps photo of the park (right), with similarities marked by AFP:
AFP has debunked a similar claim falsely linking images from the 2023 World Youth Day to the Israel-Hamas war here, as well as other misinformation circulating about the conflict here.
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