schema:text
| - Misleading: This repeatedly debunked, old photo doesn’t show an orphan in Gaza
On June 3, a law professor at Arizona State University, Khaled Beydoun, posted an image on his Instagram and X accounts with a claim that the photo shows an orphan in Gaza sleeping alongside the graves of his parents.
He had collectively garnered more than 85,000 likes and 700 reposts before he deleted the two posts. Beydoun regularly discusses the ongoing bombing of Gaza by Israel, particularly its impact on children.
Some users who reacted to his posts expressed sympathy for the child. Others questioned the authenticity of the image and the validity of his claim.
Annie Lab immediately recognized the image as one of the well-known photographs that had been misused multiple times during the past decade.
Saudi photographer Abdulaziz Alotaibi uploaded a black-and-white version of the photo on his Instagram on Jan. 4, 2014.
Four days later, he posted a colored version, which recirculated on social media this month, more than 10 years after it was uploaded, through various accounts, including the posts made by the university professor.
This particular photo has repeatedly surfaced online. It has been shared widely in the past, often misleadingly associated with a conflict in the Middle East.
In an interview with Beirut.com in 2014, Alotaibi said it was an art project depicting people’s sufferings.
During that same year, Alotaibi shared some behind-the-scenes photos taken in the city of Yanbu.
AFP Fact Check wrote a story featuring those images showing his nephew, who is the boy in the photograph in question, and a Bangladeshi helper who built the make-believe graves.
Previously, similar claims calling the boy Syrian or Yemeni have been debunked by many fact-checkers around the world such as India Today, BuzzFeed and Misbar.
|