No, this is not the 'before and after' images of Palestinian prisoner recently released from Israeli captivity

What is the claim?

Social media users have shared a collage of two images with the claim that they show the images of 29-year-old Badr Dahlan, a Palestinian prisoner who was recently released by Israel, before and after his capture and imprisonment. The image was shared with the caption: This is 29-year-old Palestinian Badr Dahlan. He was once full of life and loved by his community. This is him today, after enduring the trauma of abduction, torture, and brutalization by Israeli soldiers." Archives of such posts can be found here and here.

According to a report in Al Jazeera, Badr Dahlan was in custody of Israeli forces for about a month where he was reportedly tortured. The report adds that Badr was captured from Khan Younis, a city in Southern Gaza, and shortly after his release, he was filmed at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza.

However, the man seen on the left in the image is not Badr Dahlan.

What are the facts?

A reverse image search led us to social media posts (archived here and here) claiming that the man in the blue jacket in the image collage is not Badr Dahlan but Qusay Salem.

On January 7, 2024, a photojournalist working at the New York Times, Hosam Salem, posted a different photo of Qusay Salem on his Instagram account and wrote, “To the grace and pleasure of God, my beloved, heal the brokenness of our hearts, O Lord. The handsome and wonderful cousin Qusay Salem has been killed by Israeli occupation forces.. he was the car driver with my friends.@hamza_w_dahdooh and @mustafa_s_thraya."

Our research showed that Qusay Salem was a 26-year-old Palestinian driver killed in a drone strike by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) on January 7, 2024, while he was driving two Gazan journalists for an assignment. 

We were able to establish contact with Salem’s cousin, Yahya Salim, who told us, “These two photos do not belong to the same person. The one (on the left) is a picture of Qusay Salem, my cousin, who was martyred in January along with martyrs Hamza Al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraiya."

The verdict

The man seen on the left in the image shared on social media is not Badr Dahlan, who was recently released from Israeli captivity. We were able to identify the man as Qusay Salem, who was killed on January 7, 2024, in a drone attack by Israeli forces. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.