Old Video of a Person Being Beheaded Falsely Linked To Ongoing Israel-Hamas War

We found that the video dates back to July 2016 and shows a Syrian rebel group beheading a boy in Aleppo.

Fact-Check | The video is old and unrelated to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint) 

(Trigger Warning: Disturbing visuals/Description of violence)

As the war between Israel and Hamas continues, a video of a man beheading another individual is going viral on the internet.

What have users said?: X (formerly Twitter) user MrSinha has targeted "secular-liberals" over the video and shared it with hashtags, such as #IsraelUnderAttack #HamasTerrorists and #IslamIsTheProblem.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

The video had recorded around 2.5 million views at the time of writing this report. Team WebQoof received multiple queries about the video on our WhatsApp tipline, too.

(Archives of similar posts can be found here, here, and here.)

Are these claims true?: Neither is the video recent nor is it related to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. It dates back to July 2016 and reportedly shows a Syrian rebel group, Nour al-Din al-Zenki, beheading a boy in Aleppo.

What led us to the truth?: We divided the video into several keyframes using a video verification tool, InVID and performed a reverse image search on them.

• A Google Lens search led us to similar-looking visuals posted by an X user named 'Bassem'.

• The visuals were uploaded on 19 July 2016 and mentioned that a 12-year-old boy was beheaded in Aleppo by Syrian rebels.

• Taking a hint from here, we performed a keyword search on YouTube with Arabic keywords and came across a video posted on a channel named 'Orient News'.

• The video was uploaded on 21 July 2016 and its caption, when translated to English, said, "Pictures of the child being slaughtered by the Zenki movement arouse Syrian discontent and calls for the perpetrators to be punished."

News reports: A report published in The Telegraph said that Nour al-Din al-Zenki's group captured a boy who appeared to be around 12 years old and beheaded him near Aleppo in Syria.

• The child is shown on the back of a truck being taunted before being killed. The accused said that the child was from a Palestinian faction that supports President Bashar al-Assad.

• The United States was investigating the case as the video reportedly showed one of the groups it funded.

The report was published on 20 July 2016.

(Source: The Telegraph/Screenshot)

• A BBC report published in July 2016 added that the incident is said to have happened in Handarat, north of Aleppo.

• It said that the video of the boy being taunted by five Syrian rebels in the back of a truck and then being beheaded went viral on the internet.

Recent updates on Israel-Hamas war: According to a recent report, around 500 Palestinians and more than 800 Israelis have been killed.

• Bombardment and heavy fighting continued after Hamas reportedly fired around 5,000 rockets in a surprise attack on Israel.

Conclusion: An old and unrelated video of a child being beheaded by a rebel group is being shared with users falsely linking it to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

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