The photos were shared thousands of times in similar Facebook And X reports that surfaced after Muslims across the world celebrated Eid.
The festivities were cloudy through the conflict in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The war broke out after Hamas’ unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also captured 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza. The army says 42 are dead.
More than 38,150 people have been killed in Gaza in the Israeli retaliatory offensive, including thousands of children, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled territory’s Health Ministry.
However, the photos shared online were taken before the war in Turkey.
Turkey cemetery
Reverse image searches and keyword searches on Google found one of the pictures in a X-message from April 21, 2023 — months before the outbreak of the Gaza war (archived link).
The message in Turkish reads: “Zahide (8 years old) bought and left an Eid dress for her little brother or sister this Eid. Some photos and memories remain like a paper cut scar in my life.”
Another reverse image search found a TikTok video posted two days later, which appears to show the same cemetery and gives its location as Adiyaman in southeastern Turkey (archived link).
The corresponding visual clues in the video shared in fake news and the TikTok video confirmed that they showed the same place.
Turkey’s Teyit Hattipart of the state news agency Anadolu reported that the photo was taken at the new cemetery of Adiyaman (archived link).
AFP confirmed this by comparing the photo with Google Maps satellite images of the cemetery (archived link).
The cemetery was flooded with dead after a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey on February 6, 2023, The Financial Times reported reported (archived link).
The earthquake killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey and nearly 6,000 in neighboring Syria.
In Adiyaman province, which was hit hard by the earthquake, more than a third of the buildings have collapsed. collapsed (archived link).
AFP could not independently verify whether the grave in the photo belonged to an earthquake victim.