Fabricated Forbes covers featuring Hamas leaders circulate on social media
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 21, 2023 at 08:19
- Updated on November 21, 2023 at 08:59
- 5 min read
- By Eva WACKENREUTHER, AFP Austria, AFP Hong Kong
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"While the majority of people in the Gaza Strip live below the poverty line, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has made the Forbes rich list with a net worth of $5 billion," reads a post in simplified Chinese from November 5 on social media platform Weibo.
The post contains a purported Forbes magazine cover featuring a picture of Meshaal and text claiming he has amassed a fortune of $5 billion through connections to crime.
Meshaal is a former Hamas chief who resigned as chairman of its decision-making politburo in 2017, but he remains highly influential in the group. He is considered a key figure in its more radical bloc.
A second image circulating on social media features a photo of another Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, under a Forbes banner with a claim he has illegally made $4 billion.
Haniyeh has been at the head of Hamas's political branch since May 2017. He lives in voluntary exile and divides his time between Turkey and Qatar.
"Now a magazine cover model," reads one post in Indonesian sharing the Haniyeh image on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented attack in southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
Israel has retaliated with a relentless aerial bombardment of Gaza that has killed more than 13,000 people, mostly civilians, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Israeli tanks and soldiers have also launched a ground offensive into Gaza.
Accounts held by the Israeli foreign ministry have shared the fake Forbes covers in numerous languages, including in English on X here and here.
The Israeli embassy in Germany posted the covers here and here, along with Israel's mission in Austria. These posts have prompted thousands of re-shares, although the covers had already been circulating before the embassies waded in.
The Israeli foreign ministry said in a post on X that the covers are "satire and illustrative" (archived link).
However, many social media users presented the images as genuine.
"Forbes cover story: congratulating Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal," says one post on X in part.
Another post on the Chinese content-sharing site NetEase reads: "Hamas leaders on Forbes rich list -- when they want money, Gaza bleeds."
The images have also been posted on other platforms including Facebook and Telegram. They have been shared alongside messages in German, Spanish, Japanese, Vietnamese and Persian.
Fake covers
Forbes told AFP that both covers are fake. Its chief communications officer Bill Hankes wrote in an email on November 6 that they contain formatting irregularities that would not be found in a genuine issue (archived link).
The editor-in-chief of the magazine's German edition, Klaus Fiala, also said in an email the same day: "I can confirm that no corresponding Forbes edition has been published in German" (archived link).
Forbes displays its English-language back issues on its website (archived link). None show the Hamas leaders on the front. The most recent October-November edition features Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg (archived link).
An AFP analysis found the fake covers contain several inconsistencies with genuine Forbes editions. At the top of legitimate covers there is usually mention of stories inside the magazine, but the manipulated covers say: "Special edition with the biggest liar in the world."
The publication date is written as "October 07, 2023", but Forbes does not include the zero in dates under 10.
While the fabricated covers feature a barcode in the bottom-right corner, there is no such code on genuine issues.
The fake covers also contain publishing errors. The purported Meshaal cover has a word missing in the sentence: "Tips and tricks for destruction (of) your own country." On the cover featuring Haniyeh, words such as "From" and "Who" wrongly begin with capital letters.
Below is a screenshot comparison between the fabricated covers (left and middle) and an authentic Forbes issue (right):
Major media have reported on the wealth of Hamas leaders previously, including here and here (archived links here and here). A US Treasury document released on October 18 says senior Hamas officials "live in luxury" (archived link).
Neither Meshaal nor Haniyeh appears on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List. AFP could not independently verify how much the two men are worth (archived link).
In Gaza, around half of the population are unemployed and more than two-thirds of people depend on development aid, according to the World Bank.
AFP has debunked a wave of other misinformation arising from the Israel-Hamas war.
November 21, 2023 Updated caption of second screenshot to say it was posted on X
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