No, these images show real dead Palestinian babies, not dolls

Issued on: 15/03/2024 – 17:28

4 min

If you only have a minute:

• The video of a Palestinian woman carrying the bodies of her two babies, killed by an Israeli air strike, has gone viral after it was posted online on March 3. 
• Since the video began to circulate, a lot of pro-Israeli accounts on X and Facebook have wrongly claimed that the dead babies in the video were dolls and the video was staged. 
• News agencies AP and Reuters were on location. They reported the names of the two babies who died, Naeim and Wissam Abu Anza.
• Our team spoke to two forensic specialists who, looking at the photos, confirmed that they do show babies’ bodies. 

The fact check, in detail:

When a video of a Palestinian mother holding her two dead babies killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza started circulating online on March 3, a number of accounts were quick to start claiming that the video had been staged.  

“Pallywood Pictures presents a new short film,” reads the caption on a Facebook post shared by an account that regularly publishes pro-Israeli content in English. 

The term “Pallywood (a combination of “Palestine” and“Hollywood”) was coined in 2005 by the American historian Richard Landes, who teaches in Israel. Landes used it to describe what he believed were videos staged by the Palestinians to discredit Israeli politics. 

The original video was posted by Hazem Suleiman, a Palestinian journalist, on his Instagram account on March 3. 

“Today, their father Wissam and them [the babies] became martyrs,” he wrote in the caption. 

Five-month-old twins, Naeim and Wissam Abu Anza

These videos do show two dead babies, not dolls. 

Reporters with AP and Reuters, two international news agencies, were on the ground and provided more photos and information about the two young victims. 

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Born a few weeks into the Gaza war, infant twins Wesam and Naeem Abu Anza were buried on Sunday, the youngest of 14 members of the same family who Gaza health authorities say were killed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah 

The reports from the two agencies say that the Palestinian twins, Naeim and Wissam Abu Anza, died during an Israeli air strike in Gaza on March 2, 2024. The five-month-old babies were killed along with their father and eleven other family members. Their mother, Rania Abu Anza, survived.

Reuters and AP both reported that Rania Abu Anza and her husband Wissam, both 29, had tried to have a child for ten years. They went through three cycles of IVF before they had the twins on October 13, 2023. 

The Reuters report showed the funeral for the two babies. 

Our team spoke to Samy Magdy, who works for AP. He said he saw the babies’ bodies himself. 

We also showed the photos and videos of the babies to two forensic specialists, who said that the babies were real. 

Caroline Rambaud, a forensic doctor and expert for the Court of Appeals in Versailles, said the bruising and other marks on the babies’ foreheads correspond to real injuries. The texture of their skin, which is supple and has wrinkles and folds, looks like that of a real child and not a doll. 

‘Pallywood’: Palestinians wrongly accused of staging scenes of violence 

Since the start of the war in Gaza, a number of other fake news items featuring the same claims have also circulated online. 

A video of another Palestinian mother, holding a dead baby in her arms, was filmed after Israeli bombardements last December. An Israeli newspaper was among those who claimed the dead baby in the video was actually a doll. However, this baby was also real. His death was recorded at a local hospital and forensic doctors confirmed to our team that the image did show a human body.

In early November, the FRANCE 24 Observers team investigated how social media accounts based in India were spreading false rumours that Palestinians had been staging scenes of violence. These accounts were often run by Hindu nationalists, who are frequently accused of discrimination and violence towards the Muslim minority in their own country.