Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Claim
Hamas fighter kills Shafas Lavier, the “deadliest sniper in the Israeli Army”.
The archived versions of the tweets can be seen here and here.
Fact
Newschecker ran a keyword search for “Shafas Lavier Israeli sniper Hamas”, which did not throw up any credible news reports of such an incident happening nor any accounts of such a sniper, raising our doubts.
We then ran a reverse image search of the photo, which led us to this Washington Post photo feature, headlined “In Photos: Scenes From The Israel-Gaza War”, dated October 17, 2023. We saw that the viral image, falsely claimed to be of Shafas Lavier, had been cropped from a Reuters photograph, dated October 13, taken at Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel, with the caption reading, “Israeli soldiers rest on a patch of grass”.
Similar reports featuring the same photo can be here and here, reiterating that the Israeli soldiers were resting on a patch of grass at Kibbutz Be’eri, after a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel.
Also Read: Visuals From 2023 Puri Rath Yatra Falsely Shared As Rahul Gandhi’s 2024 Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra
Result: False
Source
The Washington Post report, October 17, 2023
The National report, October 14, 2023
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
