Did Hamas put Israeli children in cages?

On Monday, as tensions in the Middle East soared over the recent clashes, many users on social media were sharing a video which they claimed showed Hamas putting Israeli children in cages.

A user Ashlea Simon @AshleaSimonBF tweeted, “Israeli children kidnapped and kept in cages by Hamas. This is barbaric but what do you expect from savages.”

#Israel #Hamas #Palestine #Palestinian #IronDome #Gaza #TelAviv. By Monday, 9 AM IST the video had more than 1.3 million views.

Another popular right-wing Twitter comment Ian Miles Cheong, who originally hails from Malaysia and now lives in the US, also tweeted this. And later deleted the tweet.

But is this really true? Facebook accounts abound with videos of Palestinian children being held in cages by Israeli Defence Forces. But there doesn’t seem to be many mainstream media reports talking about this. In fact a Sun News report talks of Palestinian children being held in cages — but it shows an older video from Facebook and not the current video that’s going viral on social media.

Meanwhile on social media, many commentators called out pro-Israel supporters for usage of this video. A user Commie Trucker @commie_trucker tweeted, “The absurdity of displaying Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians to drum up support for Israel is staggering.

These are in fact Palestinian children being held in cages by Israeli Armed Forces.”

US right-wing commentator Jackson Hinkle also tweeted, “The viral video claiming to show Israeli children kidnapped and kept in cages by Hamas is fake (originally shared by Rybar).

On the right are the faces of Palestinian children who were actually killed by Israeli forces.”