Palestinian Boy is Not Mopping His Mother's Blood
The Claim
Palestinian boy cleans his mother’s blood off the floor of their house after Israeli forces killed her.
News posted on
Emerging story
An image is circulating on social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, of a young boy cleaning a large amount of blood from the floor. The accompanying claim is that the boy aged five is cleaning his mother’s and, in some posts, his brother’s blood after Israeli forces killed them in their home in Gaza, Palestine.
Misbar’s Analysis
MENA: The Misbar investigation found the claim to be recurring online as far back as December 2011. However, it is misleading. Upon further investigation, including a reverse image search revealed the image was uploaded on 60 different sources, as seen below.
While the source was found to be 500px.com, a photo-sharing platform, the image was uploaded by photographer Rj Stitt around May 2011 and is captioned “Palestinian Kid cleaning up after the slaughter of a cow in his parent's slaughterhouse, Nr Ramallah, Palestine.” Therefore, the image is not of the child cleaning his mother's blood or any family member. Still, instead of cleaning the blood of a cow slaughtered in his parents' slaughterhouse, it is not related to this year’s violence, and it is not in Gaza. Given the findings, the Misbar team confirms the image to be misleading.
