Have you seen a video on social media that claims to show “Hamas tunnels” being raided by Israeli soldiers this weekend? The video, which appears to show Israeli soldiers looking through weapons and uniforms, went viral on Saturday. But it’s not what some online claim it to be.
The video was shared by an account called AlexandruC4 with the caption, “Israeli soldiers in one of the Hamas tunnels.” And while the account has a relatively modest 30,000 followers on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, the video has been viewed over 820,000 times.
In reality, the video predates the current Israel-Hamas war, which started on October 7 when terrorists killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel and took another 200 hostage. The video was originally tweeted on August 31 by Israeli writer Hanan Amiur, who explains the video is from Ramallah, a city in the West Bank. The West Bank, it should be noted, isn’t controlled by Hamas, like Gaza.
“Caught today in Ramallah,” the caption of the original video reads, according to machine translation. “A fitting formal parable to mark the 30th anniversary of Oslo – the most serious and disastrous mistake in the history of the Zionist enterprise.”
There have been countless fake, misleading, and miscaptioned videos and images circulating ever since October 7 on social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and X. And it doesn’t look like the misinformation and disinformation is going to stop anytime soon, as Israel continues to bombard Gaza and thousands die.
The Guardian reported on Thursday that Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a proposal from Hamas that would’ve freed all the women, children and elderly hostages held by the terrorist group in exchange for a five-day ceasefire. The Israeli government reportedly declined the offer, though no new hostages have been freed since the start of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza.
At least 11,078 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, more than 4,500 of them children. At least 2,700 people, including 1,500 children, have been reported lost, believed to be buried under the rubble. It’s not clear how many underneath the rubble died instantly or how long each may have lived before succumbing to their injuries or death from thirst.
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