The video circulated online after India’s Hindu nationalist government raised the alarm about reports of attacks on the Hindu minority in Bangladesh immediately after the overthrow of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (archived link).
Hasina fled to India by helicopter on August 5 after being forced to quit following weeks of student protests, ending her 15-year rule.
Hindus in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country, are seen as a staunch supporter of Hasina’s Awami League party.
Gaza images
However, the video shows a child involved in an Israeli attack in Gaza.
In a video, the logo of the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera Mubasher can be seen in the top left corner.
Al Jazeera Mubasher’s placed the video on Instagram in a post dated July 14, 2024 which reads in Arabic: “Fear and panic of a child sitting alone after an Israeli airstrike on a shelter for displaced people in the UNRWA-affiliated Abu Araban school in Nuseirat camp” (archived link).
Below is a screenshot of the clip shared in fake news (left) and the video posted by Al Jazeera Mubasher (right):
Fifteen people were killed during a strike at the school housing displaced people, where the Israeli army said it had attacked “terrorists” (archived link).
The attack on the UN-run Abu Araban compound in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza was the fifth attack on a school-turned-refugee center in eight days, as Israel continued its offensive against Palestinian Hamas militants who sparked the war with their October 7 attack on Israel.
Hamas’ unprecedented assault on southern Israel that day left 1,199 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also captured 251 hostages, 103 of whom are still held in Gaza. According to the Israeli military, 33 are dead.
According to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 40,530 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza by Israel’s military retaliation.
American broadcaster CBS News published a similar video of the child on July 20, 2024, attributed to Salama Nabil Younis (archived link).
Gaza-based photographer and video producer shared the video on Instagram on the day of the strike.
AFP has previously fact-checked misinformation about the unrest in Bangladesh here.
