Syrian staircase photo misrepresented as wartime image from Gaza
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 16, 2023 at 21:23
- 3 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"You CANNOT BREAK the Palestinian spirit," says a November 12, 2023 post on X, formerly Twitter, from Jackson Hinkle, an American conservative influencer who has repeatedly amplified disinformation about the war in Gaza and other topics.
Similar posts spread across X more than a month into the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group whose fighters stormed across Israel's highly militarized border in a bloody October 7 assault, killing about 1,200 people and taking approximately 240 hostages, according to Israel's latest estimates.
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry has said Israel's bombardments have killed more than 11,500 people in the Palestinian territory.
The conflict has displaced more than 1.5 million people and destroyed nearly one house in two, according to the United Nations, leaving parents and children sleeping amidst the rubble and hungry families struggling to finance and make the trek south.
But the photo of a woman stepping down the stairs of a demolished building with a toy car in her hand is years old -- and from Syria.
A reverse image search revealed the photo on the website for the Siena International Photo Awards, a contest run by the nonprofit Art Photo Travel, where it was recognized as a "remarkable artwork" in the 2020 "Documentary & Photojournalism" category (archived here and here).
"Homs, Syria's third largest city, had been involved in war for four years. A mother, who returned home after the end of the conflict, found her child's toy car in their destroyed house," says the caption under the photo, which is titled, "Mother."
The shot is credited to Hassan Ghaedi, a freelance photographer from Iran, according to his bio on the competition's website.
Ghaedi shared the image to his Instagram account, which is private, in February 2020, writing that it was taken in June 2016.
"The #mother, who returned home after the end of the conflict and has found her child's toys," the post says. "#Homs #Syria. On June 2016."
Reached by AFP via a direct message, Ghaedi confirmed the details in his post, including the photo's date.
The civil war in Syria erupted in 2011 after President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
The ongoing conflict has killed more than half a million people, reduced cities to rubble and displaced half of the country's pre-war population while pulling in foreign powers and global jihadists.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war here.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
