Photo From Chile Falsely Shared as ‘Israeli Soldier Killing Palestinian Child'

The photo dates back to October 2016 and shows the Chilean military police's lieutenant F Venegas in Valparaíso.

The photo is from Chile and has no connection to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A photograph showing a man kneeling on a young person's neck is being shared across social media platforms, claiming that it shows an Israeli soldier killing a Palestinian child.

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

The Quint received a query for this claim's verification on its WhatsApp tipline.

(Archives of more posts with the same claim can be seen here and here.)

Is it true?: No. The photo has been on the internet since 2016 and shows F Venegas, a Chilean military police personnel.

How did we find out?: In the viral photo, the man's name tag reads 'F Venegas V'.

The man's uniform reads F Venegas V.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

We ran a reverse image search on the photo with this keyword, which led us to a Facebook post from 2020. This post mentioned the location of the photo as Chile.

The photo was shared as one from Chile.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

Adding Chile as a keyword, we looked for more information on the photograph.

This led us a to an article on Chilean radio station ADN Radio's website, where an article with this photo was published in October 2016.

The article carrying the same photograph was published in October 2016.

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

• A translated version of the article identified the man as Second Lieutenant F Venegas, who reportedly kneeled on a bleeding young man's neck while arresting him in Valparaíso, Chile.

• It mentioned that the photo was first shared on Facebook page called Frente Fotográfico, a Chilean photography collective.

• On their page, we found that a post with the same photo was uploaded on 3 October 2016.

• Translated to English, the caption identified the person as Diego, who was allegedly assaulted again after being taken to the police station. It added that Diego's family was considering filing a complaint against the police officer, sublieutenant Venegas.

The Chilean photographers' page shared the photo, identifying the person on the ground as Diego.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

• This clearer version of the photo shows an insignia with two crossed guns on Venegas' arm.

• On comparing this insignia to that of armed forces in Chile, we found that the patch showed the insignia of Chile's military police.

The logo on Venegas' arm is that of Chile's military police.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

The same photo was also shared in a report on Chilean newspaper El Mostrado's website in October 2016.

Conclusion: An old photo from Chile is being shared to falsely claim that it shows an Israeli soldier killing a Palestinian child.

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