At least 60 Palestinians were killed in southern and central Gaza after the recent Israeli airstrikes. In its aftermath, some images showing substantial scars on human beings are being falsely shared on social media platform X(formerly Twitter) with the claims implying that they are of injured Palestinians after Israel dropped phosphorus bombs on Gaza

Sharing a collage of these images on X, a user named Nadira Ali wrote: “Israel dropped phosphorus bomb on our citizens. So painful to watch”

Following Nadira, several users posted this collage with similar captions.

Fact-Check

The DFRAC reverse-searched these images using Google Lens and found that they were old and unrelated to the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023. The first image was from the 2020 conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. A news article from November 2020, featuring a video report by FRANCE24, reported the ordeal following Azerbaijan’s attack on Armenia.

Subsequently, the second image was found in the article of the website The Lancet, a general medical journal. The article was published in July 2010 stating that an 18-year-old man presented to the emergency department after suffering an attack in Jan 2009 and white Phosphorous burns was clinically diagnosed.

Conclusion

It is clear from DFRAC’s fact-check that the viral images have been misleadingly shared on X and have nothing to do with the Israel-Hamas war.

Therefore, the claim made by social media users is false.

Analysis: Misleading