Clip from short film used to falsely claim that both Hamas and Israel are producing fake news of injured boy

Context

A video of behind-the-scenes footage of a short film has gone viral on social media, with posts claiming it shows the production of staged events with crisis actors. It is claimed that both Israel and Hamas are doing this, with the same footage. One post writes specifically: “Israelis are apparently preparing fake videos of kids being murdered by Hamas.," and another reads, "Hamas terrorist group, doing what they do best, lying, harming. This is how they create their fake news, their "absolute" truths so that the left-wing propagandist channels can then give 'exclusives.' They fake an attack by Israelis on Palestinians."

Examples of the claims can be found on X here and here, and on TikTok here. However, the claim is false. 

In fact

The video shared was shot more than a year ago for a short film called Empty Place. 

Using the creator's tag in the video, “Mohamadawawdeh938”, Logically Facts found the original creator of the clip on TikTok. The clip was uploaded on April 21, 2022, and shows the behind-the-scenes footage. The Arabic description of the clip also revealed the name “Ahmad Manasra.”

Comments in response to the claims on X stated that the footage was for a short film called Empty Place. A search on YouTube for “empty places ahmad manasra film” quickly yielded the result of a two-minute-long film by Awni Eshtaiwe. The video and its description matched our earlier findings, the description reading “This film is a window overlooking the vacant places left behind all those who left because of the occupation, not only Ahmad Manasra, but rather 105,000 other “empty place” of martyrs and injured in Palestine.” The same information can be found on his Facebook page. 

The Empty Place short film i sbased on the events surrounding an alleged stabbing in Pisgat Ze'ev in 2015. Two Israeli boys were stabbed, and then 13-year-old Ahmad Manasra and his 15-year-old cousin were accused of the attack by Israeli police. Manasra was hit by a car, and his cousin was shot by Israeli police. It has since been a contentious issue among Israelis and Palestinians. Manasra was convicted of attempted murder in 2016. 

Similar claims with the same footage circulated back in 2022 and was fact-checked by Reuters and USA Today. More recently, it has been fact-checked by BBC Verify.

The claim type is similar to those seen at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, such as the claim about unrelated footage of people in body bags or that Ukraine hired pregnant models to claim that Russia bombed an operating maternity hospital in Mariupol.

Conclusion

The viral footage is from a short film and has been misattributed to current events in the Hamas-Israel War. We have therefore marked this claim as false.