Since Hamas attacked Israel on Saturday, October 7 social media platforms have been awash with videos and photos supposedly providing updates on the conflict.
However, many of these videos and photos are not only misleading or false but appear to be deliberately shared by some handles to propagate their religious ideologies and spread their own narratives and conspiracies.
In one such instance, a Tiktok account with the name Teacher Adanko (@kiramrashid750), shared a video that showed a handcuffed man being led out of a car by men dressed in military uniforms. The video bore the inscription “JUST NOW: Several high profile [sic] Israeli Generals captured by Hamas fighters” on Tuesday, October 10, 2023.
@karimrashid750 #stitch with @TcメAsar #ghananian Christians#palistine??♥️?? #israel?? #Hamas
Relying on the allegation that high-profile Israeli Generals have been captured by the Hamas fighters, “Teacher Adanko”, in the video which lasts 2:55 mins, pontificated about how Africans and Ghanaians are biased in the ongoing conflict because of the bible and the Christian faith. He spoke in Twi.
“Have you seen this video? He asked.
“The Hamas fighters have done it again. They have really surprised all of us. They have been able to capture Israelis. They have really done well.
“All Africans support Israel because of the Bible. You are supporting Israel because of religion. You don’t learn history. Israelis are settlers. The land is not theirs,” he argued.
He continued to make many allegations about Christian dogma and how incorrect they are.
At the time of filling this report, the video has garnered over 4,600 views and nearly 100 comments.
Fact-Check Ghana verified the video about the supposed capture of the high-profile Israeli General and found it to be false.
Video not related to the Israel-Hamas conflict
A Google reverse image search of the frames of the video led to a YouTube channel, DTX Official Channel, that originally published the video on October 5, 2023, days before the Hamas attack on Israel. The search also revealed other news stories providing context to the video.
The stories explained that the man being led out of the car by men dressed in military uniform had been accused, together with others, of creating illegal armed groups in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. In the longer version of the video shared by the DTX Official Channel, there were others who had also been captured by the military men.
As further proof that the video does not relate to the Israel-Hamas war, the men dressed in military uniform had on their chest area of the uniforms the inscription “DTX” which is Dövlət Təhlükəsizlik Xidməti, Azerbaijan for “State Security Service”.
Fodder for disinformation on the Israel-Hamas conflict
Further Checks by Fact-Check Ghana revealed that the video has gone viral across many countries and has become a fodder for disinformation on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The video has been shared across many platforms including X, YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp (See here, here, and here) and may likely emerge again on many other platforms or spaces, being weaponized to push narratives, ideologies and conspiracies
In conclusion, the viral video suggesting that Israeli generals have been captured by Hamas fighters is not related to the ongoing conflict.
