News has gone viral on social media platform X(formerly Twitter) claiming that Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated by Indian Mossad agent named ‘Amit Nakesh’ quoting Turkish media reports as the source. In Hebrew language, word ‘hamitnakesh’ means ‘assassin’.


Unofficial media outlet Times Algebra took to on X and wrote:”Turkish Media reports that the Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated by an Indian Mossad agent named Amit Nakesh.

Turkey trying to solve biggest mystery of 2024 !!”

Several other users also shared this news stating similar claim. The link can be seen here, here and here.

Fact-Check

To determine the reality behind the viral news, the DFRAC team conducted a keyword search on Google in this regard and found several media reports from News18India, WION news and Eurasiantimes revealing that after reports of Haniyeh’s killing surfaced, Israeli social media users started posting the clever play on the name, which ultimately perplexed the Turkish media channels.

Furthermore, according to the a report in The Jerusalem Post, having named a fictional Mossad operative, the channels doubled down and went as far as tracing the origins of the shadowy assassin. The Turkish media was slow to react to the prank but eventually did realise their mistake and scrubbed off all the mentions of the mythical assassin.

Conclusion

It is evident from DFRAC’s fact-check that the viral news claiming that the Hamas chief was killed by an Indian Mossad agent named ‘Amit Nakesh’ has been misleadingly shared on X. Upon realising the mistake, the Turkish media later effaced all details of this fictional assassin
Analysis: Misleading