Map highlights areas of red siren activation in Israel, not locations of registered sex offenders

Context

On January 12, 2024, an Instagram account shared a post with a map claiming to show registered sex offenders living in Israel. The post received over 7,000 likes, gaining further traction across Instagram, X, and Facebook.

The map contains over 400 red location pins, appearing to show registered sex offenders throughout the entire country of Israel.

In fact

Using a reverse image search, we found that the image has been online since at least 2021, with similar claims circulated alongside it. 

In one example, we came across a recent comprehensive debunking on X that featured the same map with more landmass showing. The user stated that the image was edited and that official sources do not share the locations of sex offenders in Israel. 

The image from the user's debunk has been cropped and reproduced for the viral post. In the top left corner of the original image, the logo of Red-Alerts Cumta, an app-based alarm company, is visible.

(Source: X, Cumta https://twitter.com/just_whatever/status/1730543506660204884)

We found no map or image shared by the company's website or social media accounts. 

The fact-checking organization LeadStories recently checked this claim and contacted the company's developer. The developer denied the claims and stated that the image had been edited. Additionally, the developer pointed out that upon closer inspection of the photographs, the pins are not straight; some are located two kilometers in the middle of the desert, and the image was taken from an Android application. The image is unrelated to sex offenders.

Additionally, we found no public records of registered sex offenders in Israel. Although there is an acknowledged issue of pedophiles from the U.S. taking refuge in Israel, only the Israeli police have access to a list of offenders, according to the American-Jewish media outlet The Forward. 

The verdict

The claim that the map shows the locations of registered sex offenders living in Israel is false. According to Cumta's developers, the image was cropped and edited. Also, the locations of sex offenders in Israel are not shared publicly by official sources. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.