Pro-Israel Twitter accounts started circulating a video showing a film crew recording a young actor lying on the ground, covered in blood, on April 24. They claimed the video offered proof that Palestinians were staging a photo to make it look like a Palestinian child had been injured. In reality, the Palestinian crew was filming a scene for “Empty Place”, a short film based on a true story.
Over the past two weeks, more than 250 Palestinians have been injured in clashes in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Tensions between Palestinians and Israelis have been increasing since late March – Israelis have been targeted in several deadly attacks attributed to Palestinians, while the Israeli Army carried out several raids in the occupied West Bank in response. Israeli police have been clashing with Palestinian protesters at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound since mid-April.
Against this tense backdrop, pro-Israel social media accounts have been circulating this video that they say shows Palestinians staging photos of an injured child.
If you only have a minute
- Some pro-Israel social media accounts have claimed that the video shows Palestinians staging a photo of an injured Palestinian child.
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The video, however, was actually shot during the filming of a short Palestinian film, "Empty Place", which tells the true story of Ahmed Manasra, a Palestinian teenager accused of a knife attack on an Israeli. In 2019, Manasra was sentenced to nine years in prison and is currently behind bars.
The fact-check in detail
On April 24, several pro-Israel Twitter accounts shared a video, which they said showed Palestinians staging a photo of an injured child to try to elicit sympathy.
This video shows a film crew filming a young boy. He’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans and is lying on his back, with a pool of blood around his head.
The video was shared in this post, which garnered more than 79,000 views. It was also shared in this Tweet, which got more than 75,000 views. The video has also been circulating with captions in Spanish, like this Tweet.
“Pallywood” is a term used by people in the pro-Israel camp who argue that Palestinians are staging photos to elicit sympathy and discredit Israeli policies. The term was first used back in 2005 by Richard Landes, an American historian teaching in Israel.
A video from a film shoot
The video shared on Twitter includes information about a TikTok account. The name of the account is crossed out in blue, but you can identify the name “Mohamad” and the number “938”. These clues enabled us to find the TikTok account that first shared this video.
When we went to that TikTok account, we found the same video with a caption in Arabic that says: “Behind the scenes during the filming of the scene of the colonists’ attack on Ahmed Manasra”.
The filming of this scene was also caught on camera from another angle and published on this TikTok account.
A keyword search of “film” and “Ahmed Manasra” will lead you to a trailer for the film “Empty Place”. Directed by Awni Eshtaiwe, the film tells the story of the events leading up to the imprisonment of this young Palestinian. At 1:15 in the trailer, you can see the scene showing the injured boy that has been circulating online.
The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to director Awni Eshtaiwe who confirmed that these videos were taken during the shooting of the short film, back in April.
“Empty Place” tells the true story of Ahmed Manasra, a young Palestinian who was sentenced to nine years in prison after being convicted of a knife attack on two Jewish people on October 12, 2015.
Ahmed was 13 years old when the incident occurred. He was arrested after being hit by a car while fleeing the police in the neighbourhood of Pisgat Zeev, a zone under Israeli control in East Jerusalem. His cousin Hassan Manasra, 15 at the time, was with him and was killed by the police.
A video showing Ahmed bleeding on the ground circulated at the time. The scene in the short film “Empty Place” was a reenactment of the same video, which was shared by several media outlets at the time, including CBS News on October 21, 2015.
Ahmed Manasra’s family has said that their son is innocent and says that he only admitted to carrying out the crime under duress.
