A photograph of a child, using a smartphone while being wrapped in a white sheet has gone viral on social media, claiming that it showed an example of Gazans faking deaths amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Who shared it?: Kobbi Shoshani, Consul General of Israel to India, shared the photograph, saying, "Don't believe Hamas' lies."
How did we find out?: When we carried out a reverse image search on the photo, we saw that it had been shared many times since 2022, but in a meme format.
This format was shared across platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn and Telegram, with a joke about people coming back to life to complete unfinished tasks after death.
(Swipe to view memes across platforms.)
The meme has been in use since 2022.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
One of the posts that we came across was from a Thai media channel Morning News TV 3's Facebook page, which had shared this photo with three other photos of children on 29 October 2022.
It mentioned that a mother had dressed her children up in costumes to participate in a Halloween competition at a mall in Nakhon Ratchasima city, and credited the photos to Surattana Sawadkit.
Taking a cue from this, we looked for this person on social media, which led us to the mother's account on Facebook, where we saw the same photos.
Sharing the photos on 29 October 2022 with hashtags related to Halloween, Sawadkit mentioned that the dresses were "easy and comfortable" for a "small event" and did not "need much."
Conclusion: An old photo of a child dressed up in a Halloween costume has gone viral with the false claim that it shows Gazans faking deaths amid the ongoing conflict with Israel.
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