Graphic video from Sweden falsely shared as ‘Israeli police beating Palestinian child’

Videos shared with false claims continued to flood social media as the war in Gaza entered its second year, triggered by Hamas’ unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack to which Israel retaliated with a bloody offensive in the Palestinian territory. Recent posts condemning Israel were repeatedly shared worldwide alongside a graphic video and a false claim that it shows an Israeli police officer strangling a Palestinian child. In fact, the circulating clip predates the Israel-Hamas War and shows an incident in Sweden in 2015.

Warning: graphic video

“An Israeli police officer sat on the body of a Palestinian child and strangled him during protests against (sic) the US embassy in Jerusalem on Saturday. The child suffocated and eventually died,” read part of the Thai-language caption to the video shared on Facebook on November 11, 2024.

It shows a man in a fluorescent yellow vest pressing a boy’s face to the ground.

The boy is shown lifting his index finger and reciting the Islamic Shahada creed professing belief in Allah and the acceptance of the Prophet Mohammed as God’s messenger.

The post surfaced as the war in Gaza raged on, triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures (archived link).

The militants also took 251 hostages into the Gaza Strip. Some were already killed. Of those, 97 are still held hostage, while 34 are confirmed dead but their bodies remain in Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 43,700 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers the figures reliable.

The video was also shared with similar false claims by social media users from Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Australia and Romania.

Comments indicated many users believed the posts.

“I can’t stand it anymore with what Israel has been doing to our Palestinian brothers and sisters,” one wrote.

“Look at the actions of the most wicked Zionist nation done to the children of Palestine,” said another.

There have been frequent protests in Israel following the outbreak of the Gaza war, as Israelis pressured their government to do more to secure the captives’ release (archived links).

But AFP found no official reports about a Palestinian child killed by an Israeli police officer during a protest near the US embassy in Jerusalem.

Moreover, the video is…