Old video of Iraq girl crying falsely linked to Israel-Hamas war

Published on November 30, 2023 at 09:34
Updated on December 1, 2023 at 07:46
4 min read
By AFP Bangladesh

Israel's air and ground campaign in Gaza has killed thousands of civilians and reduced swathes of the territory to rubble. A video of a girl mourning her mother's grave that surfaced in posts claiming she is Palestinian, however, is unrelated to the conflict. The footage was filmed in Iraq and has circulated online since at least 2020, years before the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October 2023.

"Is there any human rights organisation that will console a motherless child?" reads a Facebook post, written in Bengali, shared on October 16.

"Is there any Arab ruler who can ease the pain of a helpless child? Is there any human rights organisation that will write about this girl?"

The post, which features hashtags such as #PalestinianLivesMatter, shows a video of a girl crouched on the ground and weeping.

Bengali text overlaid on the video says: "The child lost everything she has".

Screenshot of the false post taken on October 18, 2023

The video attracted hundreds of views in similar Facebook posts here and here.

The Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7, when Hamas militants poured over the border into Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 240, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel's subsequent air and ground campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to Hamas officials, and reduced large parts of the north of the territory to rubble.

A truce between Israel and Hamas that brought a temporary halt to the fighting neared expiration on November 30, with a last group of hostages freed from Gaza overnight in exchange for dozens of Palestinian prisoners.

Iraq girl

A reverse image search on Google found a longer version of the video posted in 2020 -- years before the Israel-Hamas war broke out.

The YouTube video, which was posted on October 12, 2020, is titled in Arabic: "The child Fatima Salam Shaalan Al-Moussawi, her mother has died. Look at what she has done to herself. God is great". (archived link).

The girl mourning can be heard saying "mama" in Arabic.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (left) and the YouTube video from 2020 (right):

Screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (left) and the YouTube video from 2020 (right)

The same YouTube channel posted another video showing the same girl, along with a man and a boy, placing a garland of flowers on what appears to be a grave.

The Arabic title of the video reads: "The child, Fatima Salam Shaalan, visits her mother three days after her death".

A person off-camera is heard saying in Arabic: "Fatima is going to her mother's grave".

The video's description says the child's mother died from Covid-19 on October 8, 2020 at Najaf Hospital -- which is located in the Najaf province of Iraq.

AFP confirmed the longer YouTube video was filmed in the same place as the video shared in false social media posts, by comparing visual features in both clips.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in false posts (left) and the longer YouTube video (right) with similarities highlighted by AFP:

Screenshot comparison of the video shared in false posts (left) and its longer version uploaded on YouTube (right) with similarities highlighted by AFP

Furthermore, the Iraqi flag is visible at the 44-second mark of the YouTube video.

An AFP journalist in Beirut recognised the cemetery in the video as Wadi Al Salaam cemetery in Najaf city in Iraq, which was confirmed via geolocation of the scene on Google Maps.

Moreover, the longer YouTube video shows domes which can be seen in a photo of Wadi Al-Salaam cemetery taken by Getty Images.