Hamas attack was recently experienced on the Kibbutz of Kfar Aza and news outlets reported the repercussions. The BBC conveyed how the Israeli army spent a whole day retrieving civilian bodies from the devastation. Reuters stated regarding an Israeli reserve soldier reporting about the attackers armed with several weapons. A video was used from The New York Times from eyewitnesses in Sderot showing uncritical firing on the civilians.
No matter how, few news reports spread false information into this tragic event, which has made the situation even worse. On Wednesday night there were abrupt headlines in Western media stating that Hamas had beheaded 40 babies during their conflict with Israel. Initially, the news came from Israeli news channel i24 News and it soon spread to other media outlets. They stated that the Israeli army who were said to be deeply hurt by what they had apparently noticed. Meanwhile, after a few hours the Israeli soldiers reported that there was evidence or guarantee for these claims of Hamas beheading babies.
A number of Indian news channels which includes Republic, Oplndia, Swarajya, The Times of India, NDTV and Times Now had spread the news based on the information from i24 News stating that Hamas had cruelly killed babies, including beheadings during the war between Israel and Palestine. Israeli soldiers and officials were cited as sources for these reports and later faced doubts and scrutiny as the Israeli army contradicted these false claims. It is significant to note that initially the news created controversy and shock among people but further questioned for their accuracy and confirmation.
Many media channels were dependent on i24 News as their source which was risky, especially during the time of war but Fact-checkers were busy checking the accuracy of this fake news about Israel and Palestine.
This fake news had continued after the U.S President Joe Biden referred to the pictures of terrorists beheading children. Later, they clarified that they hadn’t witnessed any such pictures directly and the President’s comments were completely based on the allegations made by Netanyahu’s spokesperson and from the media reports in Israel. At present, two new websites are mentioning that the source of this fake news “beheaded babies” might be from an Israeli named David Ben Zion.
