10-Year-Old Video Peddled as ‘People Faking Deaths’ Amid Israel-Hamas War

The video dates back to 2013 and shows Egyptian students protesting at Cairo's Al-Azhar University.

The video has been on the internet since 2013 and is not related to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video purportedly showing a long row of dead bodies wrapped in white cloth, which shows some 'bodies' moving and interacting with the cameraperson is being shared on social media.

The claim: The video is being shared to claim that it shows news organisation Al Jazeera preparing to film the bodies, implying that it shows people faking deaths amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

• This claim was also shared by X (formerly Twitter) account Megh Updates, which has been called out for spreading misinformation on multiple occasions.

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

The Quint received a query for this video's verification on its WhatsApp tipline.

(Archives of more social media posts sharing the same claim can be seen here and here.)

Is it true?: No. The video dates back to 2013 and was shot in Egypt, where students from the Al-Azhar University staged a protest against Egyptian security forces.

How did we find out?: We divided the video into keyframes using Google Chrome's InVID extension, and ran reverse image searches on some of them.

• This led us to a YouTube video on a channel named Al-Badil newspaper, which shared the same video on 28 October 2013.

The video was uploaded ten years ago.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

• The translated title of the video mentioned that it showed a "representation of dead bodies inside Al-Azhar University."

• In the description, we found that the video showed students from the Muslim Brotherhood at Egypt's Al-Azhar University, who had organised a massive protest against the country's armed forces, specifically the army and the police.

Why were people protesting?: We looked for news reports about the protest and came across one by Reuters, which mentioned that thousands of students had gathered on multiple days to protest against the army since it "toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi" earlier that year in July.

• The report added that approximately 4,000 protesters had gathered to demand Mursi's reinstatement, of which 44 were arrested.

• The police fired tear gas to disperse the students, who had blocked the road leading to the university's campus, pelting stones at security forces when they drew close, BBC reported.

The Quint had previously debunked this claim in 2021, when it was being shared with similar claims.

Conclusion: A 2013 video showing a protest in Cairo, Egypt, is being shared with false claims which link it to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)