A viral post accompanying a video is circulating on social media claiming that a Palestinian woman is applying makeup on the faces of children to depict them as dead. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video depicting a Palestinian woman applying makeup to the faces of children to make them look dead.
Fact: As per the news reports, these visuals show the bodies of Palestinian children deceased in an Israeli air strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp on 08 November 2023. The woman seen in the video is bidding farewell to her child, using a digital counter called ‘Misbaha’ (used to count prayers). Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
In the context of the ongoing month-long conflict between Hamas and Isarel, a video circulating on social media depicts what appears to be lifeless children lying on the ground, covered with white sheets. A woman in a hijab is shown gently touching the face of one of the deceased children. Some individuals on social media platforms allege that the woman is applying makeup to create the illusion of injury or death on the child’s face.
Upon observing the viral video, we identified an Arabic text resembling a copyright mark, which translated to “Omar Al-Derawi.” Subsequently, we conducted a keyword search and discovered the Instagram account of Omar Al-Dirawi (omar_aldirawi), a photojournalist based in Gaza. On 8 November 2023, Omar had posted the same video with a caption indicating, “Mom says goodbye to her kids.” Another reel shared on the same day, captured at the same location, featured a caption by Omar stating, “A massacre of children now in Nuseirat,” referring to the refugee camp in Gaza.
We conducted a targeted keyword search with a date filter. This search led us to a news report by the Palestine Chronicle dated 08 November 2023. According to the report, an Israeli airstrike on a building in the Nuseirat refugee camp that morning resulted in the tragic deaths of 17 Palestinians, with the majority being children.
Furthermore, Quds news report and a report from the IHA News, a Turkish news agency, featured the viral video. According to these reports, the airstrike had targeted a building in the northern part of Deir al-Balah, resulting in a total of 18 casualties, including 10 children.
Comparing the screen grabs of the viral video and the news report, we concluded that both are related to the same incident.
We reached out to local reporters who confirmed to us that the viral video was shot at the al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. They also mentioned that the woman in the viral video had a tally/digital counter on her finger and not a makeup brush. They added, “She’s only using her finger in the video to touch and bid farewell to that dead child. The blue object on her finger appears to be a digital counter ‘Misbaha’ used by some people to count prayers.”
It can be clearly seen in the video that the woman is moving her fingers over the child’s face, possibly as an affectionate gesture, and there’s a blue object wrapped in her right hand’s index finger that looks like a tally counter.
To sum it up, a video depicting a Palestinian woman caressing her child is falsely shared as she applying makeup to the faces of children to make them look dead.
