A video shows an actor in Gaza who accidentally uses the wrong foot while limping, implying the injury is fake.
This isn't what it shows. The video is a comedy skit filmed in Baghdad, Iraq, and is not related to the current Middle East conflict.
A video is circulating on social media alongside claims it shows an actor in Gaza who is accidentally limping on the wrong foot.
The posts say the actor “pretends to be a ‘victim’” and that “the media is lying to us about what's happening in Gaza. Why would they need to act if there was an actual genocide?”
But the video actually shows a comedy skit filmed in Baghdad, Iraq, which was uploaded to Instagram on 8 December. It is unrelated to the current conflict in the Middle East.
That account appears to belong to a shop selling cleaning products, cosmetics and electrical items and its Instagram bio lists its location as an address in Baghdad, Iraq. Searching images of the Bab al-Derwaza Market mentioned in the bio, Full Fact was able to find a picture which matched the buildings and street signs in the back of the video, confirming it was filmed at this location in Iraq, not Gaza. The original video’s caption makes no mention of Gaza or Palestinians.
In a later post commenting on the video’s spread, and misattribution to Gaza, the account holder confirms the video was filmed in Baghdad and questions why the video ended up being wrongly connected to Gaza.
The fact that the video is being shared with captions suggesting the man in it is an actor in Gaza pretending to be a victim appears to echo a narrative, often referred to as ‘Pallywood’ (a portmanteau of Palestine and Bollywood), which has been used online to describe the alleged false staging of harm to Palestinian civilians.
Full Fact has written about this term being used before in several misleading posts online.
Misinformation spreads quickly during significant global events and can be difficult to contain. It is especially important to consider whether something shows what it claims before sharing it—you can read more about this in our guide to fact checking misleading videos.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as satire because the video does not show an actor in Gaza using the wrong foot when limping. It is actually a comedy skit filmed in Iraq.
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