Real images of Palestinians lining up for aid accused of being AI-generated
A viral video shared on social media shows a large crowd of Palestinians lining up for aid in a distribution center in Rafah. After this video was posted, users are spreading fake viral claims that the video filmed in the Tel al-Sultan aid distribution site in Gaza was generated using AI. We debunk these claims in this edition of Truth or Fake.
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France 24
6 hours ago
- France 24
Palestinians in Gaza mark Eid with outdoor prayers in the rubble
Palestinians across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip marked the start of one of Islam's most important holidays with prayers outside destroyed mosques and homes on Friday, with little hope the war with Israel will end soon. With much of Gaza in rubble, men, women and children were forced to hold the traditional Eid al-Adha prayers in the open air, and with food supplies dwindling, families were having to make do with what they could scrape together for the three-day feast. 'This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,' said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis. 'There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses. ... The conditions are very, very harsh.' The Islamic holiday begins on the 10th day of the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, during the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia. For the second year, Muslims in Gaza were not able to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the traditional pilgrimage. In Gaza City on Friday, Sanaa Al-Ghola, a displaced woman from Shejaiyah, stood in the rubble of a badly damaged graveyard near a partially collapsed mosque. She had come to pray for her son, Mohamed al-Ghoul, who she said was killed in shelling last month after going to his grandfather's house to get flour. His father was wounded in the attack. 'We lost our home, money, and everything," she said, crying as she held her son's photo. 'There is no more Eid after you're gone, my son.' Families at a displacement tent camp in Muwasi faced a grim first day of Eid al-Adha. 01:16 Tahrir Abu Jazar, 36, of Rafah, warmed up leftover lentils and cooked rice inside her tent, but said she had no bread to feed her five children, who sat on the bare ground nearby. 'There are no Eid celebrations now as there is no new clothes or sacrificial meat, or monetary gifts, or joy,' she said, reminiscing over Eid days before the war when the children had meat. 'My son went out and tried to celebrate Eid and was scared of the warplane, so he came back." In the southern city of Rafah, nine people were killed on their way to try and collect humanitarian aid at various distribution points, according to officials at Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis, where the bodies were brought. Eight died from gunshot wounds and the ninth person from shrapnel injuries. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the hospital's claim but said it was looking into the report. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a newly formed group of mainly American contractors that Israel wants to use to replace humanitarian groups in Gaza that distribute aid in coordination with the UN, told The Associated Press that reports of violence in Rafah were inaccurate and that aid distribution was completed 'peacefully and without incident'. In northern Gaza on Friday, Israel issued a new warning to civilians saying the military was about to undertake intensive operations in an area after it said rockets were fired toward Israel from the sector. Meanwhile, the military said four Israeli soldiers were killed Friday in southern Gaza when an explosive detonated as they searched a Hamas compound in Khan Younis, causing part of a building to collapse. Five soldiers were injured, one seriously, spokesperson Effie Defrin said. The war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 56 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Since then, Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians in its military campaign, primarily women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry. The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians. All of Gaza at risk of famine After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter for the UN several weeks ago. But the UN says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because of Israeli military restrictions on movements and because roads that the military designates for its trucks to use are unsafe and vulnerable to looters. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome said Thursday that Gaza's people are projected to fall into acute food insecurity by September, with nearly 500,000 people experiencing extreme food deprivation, leading to malnutrition and starvation. 'This means the risk of famine is really touching the whole of the Gaza Strip,' Rein Paulson, director of the FAO office of emergencies and resilience, said in an interview. Over the past two weeks, shootings have erupted nearly daily in the Gaza Strip in the vicinity of new hubs where desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food. Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, and more than 80 people have been killed, according to Gaza hospital officials. Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid and trying to block it from reaching Palestinians, and has said soldiers fired warning shots or, in some cases, shot at individuals approaching its troops. The GHF sent out a message on its Facebook site early Friday that it had closed all aid distribution sites until further notice and urged people to stay away for their own safety. It later clarified that the measure was only a temporary pause due to excessive crowding and that the agency had distributed all aid available Friday. Israel's military said that going ahead, distribution sites would be operated from 6am to 6pm daily and that outside those hours, the areas would be considered closed military zones that are strictly off limits.
France 24
3 days ago
- France 24
As the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation names a new chief, suspicions swirl over who funds it
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on Tuesday announced the appointment of a new director after its previous leader quit, just days before the NGO began operating as the only provider of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. American evangelical Christian leader Rev. Dr. Johnnie Moore was on Tuesday named the GHF's new chairperson after the resignation in late May of Jake Wood, who cited concerns that the operation did not adhere to 'humanitarian principles'. Moore has previously voiced support for US President Donald Trump 's idea that the US should take over the Palestinian enclave. 'The USA will take full responsibility for future of Gaza, giving everyone hope & a future,' he wrote on X, where he also criticised the UN food distribution program, which normally runs 408 centres in Gaza, for enabling Hamas to control supplies. Moore's appointment comes amid daily reports of deadly attacks on Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in and near GHF aid distribution centres since they opened last week. "Civilians are risking – and in several instances losing – their lives just trying to get food," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday. The GHF aid distribution model was "a recipe for disaster – which is exactly what is going on', he added. $100 million donation The UN and aid groups have refused to work with the GHF – backed by the US and Israel – because they say it is not a neutral operation. But little is known about how the newly formed NGO is run or who funds it. In October 2024, the GHF hired US consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group to design and run its business operations. The consultancy firm on Friday terminated its contract with GHF and placed one of the senior partners leading the project on leave pending an internal review, the Washington Post reported. Anonymous sources speaking to the Post said it would be difficult for the foundation to continue to function without the consultancy group 'actually making the wheels turn' on the ground. While the GHF has almost no digital footprint, a memo released in May to potential donors details key board members and the involvement of two US private security firms, UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions. The memo says the NGO has since February 2025 been registered in Switzerland, where investigators are now leading an enquiry into whether its operations are illegal. But a New York Times report, which claims the GHF is an Israeli brainchild conceived during the first few weeks of the war, found a group named the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was also registered in Delaware. The organisation does not reveal where its funding comes from, except for saying in a statement released in May that it had received a donation of over $100 million from an unnamed Western country. Shell companies In Israel, rumours swirled that the anonymous benefactor was actually the Israeli state, covertly using taxpayer money to fund the project. 'Is the State of Israel behind two shell companies established in Switzerland and the United States, GHF and SRS, to organise and finance humanitarian aid in Gaza?' Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid asked in parliament on May 26. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's spokesperson denied the accusation. But former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli media outlet Haaretz he was convinced that Israel's defence ministry and its intelligence arm, Mossad, were funding the NGO. 'As someone who knows these systems well, it's clear to me when I see such a construction,' he said. 'You have a foundation that appeared out of nowhere, and a company operating without a background or experience." "We're talking about costs in the hundreds of millions to maintain hundreds of armed Americans with combat experience and to provide food,' he added. More recently, the Israeli military seems to have claimed some ownership of the GHF. In a video released on June 1, IDF spokesperson Effie Defrin says soldiers were responsible for opening the centres. 'Fear and deep suspicion' The GHF says that it has given out more than seven million meals from three 'secure' distribution sites since it started operations in the enclave a week ago. But its centres were closed on Wednesday as the group pressed the Israeli military to improve security. This left Gaza's population of 1.2 million, which the UN says now faces the risk of famine, with no access to essential food or medical supplies. 'Basically, the Israeli-backed aid distribution plan, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has taken a day off,' FRANCE 24 correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky said while reporting from Jerusalem. Meanwhile, an Israeli military spokesperson on Wednesday warned civilians in Gaza against moving on roads leading to GHF sites, deeming them "combat zones". Since opening its centres in Gaza there have been near-daily reports of Israeli attacks killing dozens of Palestinians in proximity to the distribution sites and widespread chaos inside. Palestinians who collected food GHF boxes on Tuesday described scenes of pandemonium, with no one overseeing the handover of supplies or checking IDs as crowds jostled for aid. Conditions at the centres and the difficulty for Palestinians to access them has raised 'fear and deep suspicion' among critics that they are part of a wider Israeli plan to force Palestinian displacement, Arwa Damon, founder of non-profit aid organisation INARA, told FRANCE 24. 'It is exactly how you do not organise aid distribution,' Damon said. 'You do not force people to walk through danger zones, where they are at risk of getting shot, and only provide them with four locations where they can pick up this much-needed assistance. You don't force the population to walk six or seven hours to pick up a food parcel.'
France 24
3 days ago
- France 24
'We don't want a Palestinian state,' Israeli economy minister says
Israel 's Economy Minister Nir Barkat was categorical about his country's position. "We don't want a Palestinian state," he told FRANCE 24, proposing instead an "emirate model" for Palestinians in the West Bank, arguing that "successful Arab countries are tribal based". Barkat also dismissed the Oslo Accords as a failure, noting that 99 out of 120 Israeli lawmakers had voted against a Palestinian state. This week has seen a string of deadly incidents near aid distribution sites in Gaza operated by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Barkat insisted that Israel was working with the Americans to ensure aid reaches civilians directly, bypassing Hamas. "We want to separate, make sure that the aid goes directly to the people and Hamas wants to fight that. They want to control the people through the aid that is passed to Gaza," he claimed. Despite Western pressure, 'nobody's going to stop us' Since Israel launched its expanded Gaza offensive known as "Operation Gideon's Chariots" in May, Western capitals including the UK, France and Canada have issued strongly-worded joint statements threatening "concrete" actions against Israel. 09:35 "Nobody's going to stop us because it's our neck on the line", Barkat said in reaction to this criticism. "I expect the world to understand who the real enemy of the free world [is]: the jihadists, the terrorists ... Don't support them." The minister also issued a warning to France, one of the countries that could soon recognise a Palestinian state. "Don't take the wrong route," he said, urging Paris to instead "support the only democracy in the Middle East" and "help us finish the war quickly".
