Gaza (Reuters) - A video of a Gaza woman interviewed in Arabic has been shared online with false English subtitles claiming that she is saying, “I prefer the Jews” over Hamas.
The clip shows a woman in a headscarf as she speaks expressively in Arabic to a person off-camera. However, English subtitles, opens new tab displayed throughout the video are false translations, including: “I prefer the Jews ... I don’t feel like dying. We tried to escape, they (Hamas) forced us to stay here.
Said they will slaughter my belly. Slaughter me, if I escape…. Like this for 30 days now. We are prisoners of Hamas. ‘It’s forbidden to say that name.’"
WHAT DID THE WOMAN SAY?
A Reuters translation of the exchange in Arabic between the woman and the person off-camera in the miscaptioned video shows that at no point did the woman say she “prefers the Jews” over Hamas.
Her remarks include: “The boys are afraid! In the end, I sacrificed myself, went inside and the Jews entered, and I didn't care if I died! I went in and looked and found my son's body. I recognized him by the belt he was wearing, a type of horse belt, and I found his phone. My son's name is Ibrahim Sa'eed El-Shafi'i!"
A man then asks what she saw, to which she responds: "I met the Jews. When I went ... there were corpses at the tunnel. But no one will search (for them)."
FALSE SUBTITLES ADDED
Hassan Eslayeh, opens new tab, a photojournalist from the Gaza Strip, told Reuters that he filmed the woman in the video. He posted the footage on Instagram, opens new tab Nov. 7 without the false captions that were later added by social media users.
Reuters could not establish who produced the mistranslations, or the motive for doing so. Eslayeh denied he had any involvement in this incident and the news agency found no evidence to contradict that.
In a Dec. 23 voice message, Eslayeh described the context of the original video, saying that the woman described retrieving the body of her son, who she said was killed at a checkpoint area in Gaza, and she had brought him to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital area for burial.
Reuters did not independently verify the details of the woman’s account, but the location of the scene in Eslayeh’s footage was geolocated to Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital, opens new tab in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza by comparing frames with file photos and video of the hospital and its surroundings.
Corroborating visuals include photographs in an Oct. 15 Reuters report about ice cream trucks used outside the hospital to refrigerate bodies. The trucks can be seen parked against the same wall as seen in the first two seconds of Eslayeh’s video, opens new tab.
Video uploaded to YouTube by the official Palestinian WAFA news agency on Nov. 8 also shows the scene outside the hospital and includes footage of the same woman, opens new tab speaking to cameras.
Reuters has previously fact-checked videos with mistranslated subtitles in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.
Disclosure: News outlets CNN, opens new tab and AP, opens new tab said they cut ties with freelance photojournalist Eslayeh in November 2023 after an Israel-focused media advocacy group accused him, opens new tab and other Palestinian freelancers of allegedly having been embedded with Hamas militants ahead of the Oct. 7 surprise attacks on Israel.
The group also posted a past photo on X, opens new tab showing Eslayeh being embraced by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Eslayeh denied the report’s accusations, telling Reuters that he had no advance knowledge of the Hamas incursion into Israel and that he left his house in Gaza an hour after the initial attack. Reuters did not publish any photos from Eslayeh related to the Oct. 7 attacks.
He identified the photograph with Sinwar as having been taken in 2018 and said that he has been photographed with many public figures while a press reporter. He further said that he does not belong to any party and respects everyone. Reuters could not independently verify when the photo was taken, but it was posted on X, opens new tab, then known as Twitter, as early as 2020.
On Jan. 17, Eslayeh reiterated to Reuters that he stands by his responses.
VERDICT
Misleading. The video subtitles in English are false and do not correspond to what the woman says in Arabic.