A video is being shared on social media claiming it is the recent visuals of Hamas militants forcing Israeli hostages to prostrate and offer prayers to Allah. The video shows a group of people lying on their kneels on a street and offering prayers with the Israeli flag. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of Hamas militants forcing Israeli hostages to pray to Allah.
Fact: The post shared a 2020 video of people in Brazil praying on the streets to protect them against COVID-19. The video shared in the post is old and had nothing to do with the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, a video showing similar visuals was found published by a YouTube channel in April 2020. This YouTube channel published the video with the description, “Brazil praying in a street for God mercy”. Many other YouTube users have also published this video in 2020 with similar descriptions. They can be seen here and here.
At the bottom of one of the videos, one could see the watermark “Joshua Lutz| REPPENFORCHRIST.com.” When we searched for further details of the video, we found the video on the Facebook page of ‘Reppenforcrist’. This Facebook page published the video on 22 April 2020, with the title, “Streets of Brazil“. Further, the post says, “People are coming together all over the world & turning to Jesus through this virus!“
When we searched for further sources using relevant keywords, a photo showing similar visuals was found published by many Christian organizations in April 2020. These organizations mentioned that the photo was taken in Brazil while citizens offered prayers to Jesus on the streets to protect them against the COVID-19 pandemic.
A few other videos and articles regarding the mass prayers performed on the streets in Brazil, in April 2020, can be seen here, here, and here. In one of the videos, one could see people offering prayers on a street with the Israel flag similar to what is shown in the video in the viral post. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the video shared in the post is old and not related to the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine.
To sum it up, an unrelated old video from Brazil is shared as the recent visuals of Hamas militants forcing Israeli citizens to offer Islamic prayers.
