No Evidence a Palestinian Boy Named Hamza Committed Suicide
The Claim
A 14-year-old boy committed suicide in Gaza, Palestine after Israeli Forces killed his mother.
News posted on
Emerging story
Images of a boy mourning over a dead body have emerged on social media with the claim that the boy has committed suicide amidst the violence in Palestine. Social media posts claim that the boy is a 14 year-old named Hamza, who is from the Gaza Strip. He allegedly jumped from the eighth floor of a building following the killing of his mother in the wake of the airstrikes.
Misbar’s Analysis
MENA: Misbar's investigation found the claim to be misleading. A reverse image search revealed that the image accompanying the claim first emerged in 2019 on Reuters and The Insider. It shows the son of Hani Abu Shaar, who was killed after the Israeli warplane attached the Strip in May that year.
The caption on Reuters read, "The son of Palestinian Hani Abu Shaar, killed by an Israeli airstrike, was crying over his mother's body during the funeral in the southern Gaza Strip." Misbar found no evidence or reports by any credible sources of the suicide claim. Furthermore, some of the claims start by stating the boy lost his entire family in 2009 and then add that he lost various members in 2009, 2012, 2014, and now in 2021. Arabic Misbar reached out to Mr. Ashraf Al Qidra, the spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, to verify the information. He confirmed that the claim is fabricated and unfounded. Given the investigation and the lack of credible sources reporting on the matter, coupled with the statement by Al Qidra, we rate this claim as misleading. The image is from 2019 of a boy mourning his father with no evidence that he committed suicide.
