FALSE-Is there a video and photos showing the bodies of children beheaded by Hamas?

In response to the wishes expressed by our readers and their requests, we have carried out this special translation of articles from the Arabic language into English.We’ve also provided all the necessary updates.

(This text is a translation of the article published on October 23th, titled هل هناك فيديو وصور تظهر جثث أطفال مقطوعة رؤوسهم من قبل حركة حماس؟)

US President Joe Biden, speaking about the "practices of the Hamas movement" in a speech delivered on October 11, 2023, addressing the leaders of the Jewish community , stated and confirmed that he had seen photos showing members of the Hamas movement, whom he called terrorists, beheading the bodies of Israeli children. "I never thought that I would see and have confirmed, images of terrorists beheading children," he said.

Earlier, the correspondent of the Israeli I24NEWS channel, Nicole Zedek, stated during a live broadcast with an Israeli soldier named David Ben-Zion on October 10, 2023,"that members of the Hamas movement are committing terrible crimes against the children of Israel, as she talked about watching the corpses of beheaded children.

Sky News also published a report on its official YouTube channel in which they talked about“the killing of children by Hamas and the beheading of their corpses”, which caused a great stir and contributed to a global uprising and condemnation of Hamas.

This news was went viral on social networking websites, as reported by the "BBC","CNN" and other international media outlets.

To verify this news, our team conducted a first-stage search using the "Google" engine. The research gave two different versions of news:

The first is represented by videos and reports published by media websites that circulated the first version stated by the US president, which was carried after that Sky News Channel, which published a video on their YouTube channel entitled "horrific: Israeli forces discover the bodies of 40 children killed by Hamas" the video was widely spread on social networking sites and gained 805 thousand views and many interactions. The channel also published another video called "Israel: the abduction of mothers, children and grandparents by Hamas gunmen" while the content of the video contradicts the one mentioned in the title. The video showed Hamas operatives reassuring the woman who was carrying her children and assuring her that they would not harm her or her children. It is reported that the channel has not translated the video content.

The second version we came to is the denial of this news. In a statement on Wednesday, October 11, 2023, Hamas denied the accusation that it had killed children, beheaded them and targeted civilians in Israel. “We categorically confirm the falsity of the fabricated allegations promoted by some Western media outlets that adopt the Zionist narrative full of lies, the latest of which was the allegation of killing children, beheading them and targeting civilians”, they said in a statement.

Israeli officials also said that there is no evidence for the veracity of this news, as the IDF spokesperson’s office stated, on October 10, 2023, that it does not have any information confirming what Israeli media published and spread on social media about "Hamas members beheading children".

The White House issued a statement on October 11, 2023 announcing its retraction of US President Joe Biden's statement made during his speech, in which he claimed to have seen photos showing Hamas militants beheading Israeli children. The White House confirmed that none of the US officials had seen photos documenting this, and explained that Biden had relied on Hebrew media reports in his previous statements.

Through in-depth research, we found out that the American news site "the Grayzone" revealed the identity of the main source who promoted the news, which is David Ben-Zion, deputy commander of the 71st unit in the army of the occupying entity. He also is a settler leader who incited the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank earlier this year.

For his part, Oren Ziv, an Israeli reporter who joined a tour of the occupation forces in Kafr Aza, commented: "I received a lot of questions about children who were beheaded by Hamas, after the media tour, in the settlement, and we did not see any evidence of this, and the army spokesman did not mention any such incidents”.

The Anadolu agency contacted the Israeli occupation army, which said that it "does not have any information confirming allegations that Hamas beheaded any children".

Sky News International Affairs Editor Dominic Waghorn published a post on X (previously Twitter) in which he wrote: "The story of the children with severed heads in Kafr Azza was based on the report of one Israeli reporter, and its authenticity has not been confirmed by any official body.

It is noteworthy that even after the sources admitted that there is no evidence of the existence of videos and photos documenting the bodies of children beheaded by Hamas, the media concerned did not delete the content and these news and reports are still widespread and circulating on various communication and media platforms.

Based on all the data, Tunifact platform classifies the news of "The existence of photos and videos documenting the bodies of children beheaded by Hamas" among the false news.

(Produced and Translated by intern journalist Hadil Azouz)