Pro-Israel propaganda sites have been increasingly claiming that videos showing the wounded or injured in Gaza are actually products of "Pallywood" or scenes staged to drum up sympathy for the Palestinians. These campaigns regularly resurface a video that they say offers proof of Palestinians staging a hospital scene. However, the actual video was filmed during a film shoot in Morocco.
If you only have a minute:
- A video showing a camera crew filming a man on a stretcher, who then gets up and walks away once the filming stops, has been shared online by people who say it is proof that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been staging their injuries.
- It turns out that this video was actually filmed on a Moroccan film set. It was posted on Instagram on October 30, 2023 by one of the actors.
The fact-check, in detail
The video shows a crew of camera men filming a man on a stretcher. When they finish, the man stands up – clearly uninjured. The video has been circulated online by French-language pro-Israel accounts since December, at least.
This video has also been doing the rounds of Arab and English-speaking communities on X and on Instagram since early March.
However, when we ran this video through a reverse image search (click here to find out how), we were able to establish when this video first appeared online – it was posted on Instagram on October 30, 2023 on Karim Doniazalle’s account. According to the biographical information listed on the account, Doniazalle is a Moroccan actor and director. In his post, Doniazalle says that the video was taken during the filming of a movie. In the caption, he writes “Ready soon” and adds the hashtags "Hollywood", "Morocco" and "Actor".
In the comments sections, a number of people accused Doniazalle of providing fodder for the pro-Israel accounts who have been spreading rumours about Pallywood, that Palestinians are staging videos of their deaths and injuries.
Under his Instagram post, the actor said that his video “had nothing to do with Gaza” and that he acted in and directed this film.
Independent Arabic-language fact-checking outlet Misbar also verified this video.
Read more‘Pallywood propaganda’: Pro-Israeli accounts online accuse Palestinians of staging their suffering
Since Israel began its bloody offensive in Gaza, pro-Israel social media users have circuled a number of photos and videos, taken out of context, and falsely claimed that they provide proof that Palestinians are staging their injuries. This is the "Pallywood" theory, a contraction of the words "Palestine" and "Hollywood". This term was already used before the war in Gaza in a bid to deny that there were Palestinian victims in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
