Omar Bilal al-Banna and Omer Siman-Tov lived 14 miles apart, on different sides of the fence dividing GazaThe smaller of two Palestinian territories, home to two million people. It is located on the Mediterranean coast, bordered by Israel and Egypt. from Israel. Both were four years old, and both were early victims of the current conflict. Omer died when HamasA militant Palestinian organisation, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007. It is listed as a terrorist organisation in the UK. attacked the kibbutzA communal farm in Israel, traditionally drawing workers from all over the world. where his family lived on 7 October. Omar was killed four days later in an Israeli airstrike.

Their deaths were shocking enough - but what happened afterwards made things even worse.

A video clip posted by a pro-Israeli account on X (formerly Twitter) showed a man carrying Omar's body. But the accompanying caption told an outrageous lie: "It's not a real baby; it's a doll."

Omer was treated with no more respect. When a photo was posted on X showing him with his family before he was killed, Hamas supporters made comments claiming that he had not died at all. They said that he was a "paid actor" involved in "Jewish propaganda at its finest".¹

The post about Omar has now been seen nearly four million times. "It's been shocking to see so many people fall for misinformation," says Kolina Koltai, a researcher for the fact-finding organisation BellingcatAn investigative journalism group founded in 2014 specialising in fact-checking. . "Particularly in these times of emotionally charged distress, a lot of content tends to go viral."

Elon MuskA South African-born entrepreneur whose companies have included the online payment service PayPal. He now controls Twitter, renamed 'X'. has come in for special criticism. As well as reducing the number of moderators dealing with false and hateful posts since he bought X, he has introduced "verified" checkmarks which supposedly show that an account is genuine and trustworthy.

But according to the anti-misinformation body NewsGuard, three-quarters of the most viral misleading posts about Gaza come from "verified" accounts.² Many use photos and videos from completely different times and places.

Establishing the truth in war zones is fraught with difficulty. Journalists' movements are often restricted, as they are by Hamas in Gaza, and both sides try to feed them propaganda.

Here are some other examples of fake news from the conflict:

"Tel Aviv attack" A video claiming to show rockets being fired at the Israeli capital was really shot in Syria three years ago.

"City on fire" Footage of a supposed Israeli attack on Gaza actually shows firework celebrations after an Algerian football match.

"Beaten girl" Presented as a hostage taken by Hamas, but in fact filmed in Colombia in 2016.

"Helicopter downed" A sequence from a video game used to claim a victory for Hamas.

"Trembling puppy" Viewed over 27 million times, a video of a puppy said to be too scared to eat after an Israeli air strike started out with a caption in Japanese.    

"Embassy firebombed" Footage of an attack on a police station in Bahrain 11 years ago was presented as a present-day attack on Israel's embassy there.  

"Fake injuries" A video of Palestinians apparently being made to look like war casualties came from a 2017 report about make-up techniques.

Yes: If news organisations were doing their job properly we would have a clear idea of what is happening in Gaza and the rights and wrongs of the conflict. Instead we do not know what to believe.

No: Many journalists are doing amazing work in incredibly difficult and dangerous circumstances. Organisations like Bellingcat have shown extraordinary ingenuity in checking facts.  

Or... On the contrary, we have failed the media by accepting news from unreliable sources such as Facebook. We should pay more to trustworthy organisations so they can afford deeper research.