Militant Palestinian group Hamas launched an attack on Israel on Saturday, Oct. 7. United States President Joe Biden and other United States government organizations have stated that the U.S. will align with Israel and send military aid.
“There are moments in this life, and I mean this literally, when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world,” Biden said. “The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend.”
Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by both the United States and Israel, along with many other countries, according to NPR. The group currently governs the Gaza Strip, a small piece of Palestinian land in the west of Israel. The Israel/Palestine area has been the site of countless conflicts and thousands of casualties in the period after World War II.
“I’m going to start out by blaming Hamas,” Missouri Representative Emmanuel Cleaver II told KSHB. “I think they started this by throwing rocks at a beehive, and as a result, hundreds and hundreds, perhaps before it’s over, thousands of human beings are going to die.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared that Ukraine is allied with Israel, according to CBS Austin. In a speech to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Copenhagen, Denmark, Zelenskyy drew parallels between the conflict in Israel/Palestine and the war in Ukraine.
“The only difference is that there is a terrorist organization that attacked Israel, and there is a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said. “The intentions declared are different, but the essence is the same. You see it in the same blood on the streets.”
In the age of social media, conflict can be broadcast across the globe in no time. However, the information being shared isn’t always accurate. According to BBC, disinformation about the fighting is rampant on social media apps such as X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram. According to the New York Times, a doctored image circulating online was made to resemble an official White House announcement of financial aid being sent to Israel.
“Breaking! Biden signs order to send $8 BILLION in Military Aid to Israel,” one user wrote, sharing the information with others on the website. The image was later confirmed by the White House to be fake.
In addition to false claims about government money, internet users are attaching untrue audio to video news broadcasts and posting them online. One instance involved a CNN broadcast covering the events in Gaza.
A spokesperson for the network discredited the video in a statement, saying, “The audio in the video posted and shared on X is fabricated, inaccurate, and irresponsibly distorts the reality of the moment that was covered live on CNN.”
