FACT CHECK: Does This Video Show Members Of Hamas Pretending To Be Dead For TV Cameras?

A video shared on Facebook purportedly shows members of Hamas pretending to be dead while cameras film them for television.

Verdict: False

The video actually shows a 2013 student protest in Cairo, Egypt.

Fact Check:

The 72-second video shows about a dozen bodies lying on the ground covered in white sheets. Some of the bodies can be seen moving and the video ends with the sheet being lifted off the face of one of the bodies revealing a young, living man.

“This was how Palestinian terrorist Hamas tried to show the world, through TV cameras, ‘the cruelty of Israelis’ in killing the ‘innocent people of Gaza,’” the video’s caption reads. “Entire drama got exposed when the people lying down started scratching after being bitten by ants on the ground.” (RELATED: Does This Image Show Egypt Projecting The Palestinian Flag Onto The Pyramids?)

Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, were recently engaged in an 11-day violent conflict, which killed at least 248 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, according to Reuters. A ceasefire took effect at 2 a.m. on May 21, CNN reported.

The video in the Facebook post, however, is unrelated to the Israeli-Hamas conflict and does not show members of Hamas pretending to be dead for the media. Through a reverse image search of key frames, Check Your Fact found the footage in a 2013 YouTube video published by Egyptian news outlet Al Badeel titled, “A representative show of the bodies inside Al-Azhar University.”

A translation of the YouTube video’s description explains it shows a group of students who were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic political group that advocates the application of Islamic law in all aspects of life, protesting at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.

Egyptian news outlet Ahram Online reported in October 2013 the protest was an “anti-coup” demonstration aimed at Egypt’s military authorities, who months earlier overthrew Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The video and the inaccurate caption have been shared online for years, with Snopes debunking it in 2018. In 2017, an Italian blog debunked the claim that the video showed fake victims of the Syrian Civil War.

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