WASHINGTON — With all the horrifying images coming out of the Middle East, it is important to know what is actually happening.
Millions of people have seen a video claiming to show Israeli children taken hostage and mistreated by Hamas. It went viral on TikTok, X, and Facebook, even catching the attention of a U.S. Senator.
QUESTION
Does a viral video show Hamas militants laughing at Israeli children locked in cages?
SOURCES
Posts on X
Posts on TikTok
ANSWER
While the origins of the video are unclear, alterations to it and evidence about its debut online cast doubt about what it shows.
WHAT WE FOUND
The video in question shows five young children inside a small chicken coop, and a man can be heard laughing in the background. It has been shared thousands of times on social media, including by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), though he deleted his post shortly after. Various X users got screenshots of his post before he took it down.
The video came from TikTok and shows the handle @user6903068251281 as the user who uploaded it. That account no longer exists on the platform.
A search of TikTok shows that the laughter comes from a laugh track that was edited onto the video. The same track can be heard in dozens of other videos, including some posted over the summer.
Fake Reporter, an Israeli watchdog group that fights misinformation, posted what it says are screenshots of the original video. They show the original was posted to TikTok last week, before Hamas attacked Israel.
Plenty of real videos of the atrocities committed against civilians exist. While we cannot verify exactly what this video shows, it is misleading to say this is how Hamas is treating Israeli children.