2013 old staged video of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University students is falsely linked to Israel-Hamas ongoing war
Claim
For the first time, I saw a dead body that was dying and itching while wearing slippers. Al Jazeera Pre-Shooting preparations.
Rating
Explanation
In the viral 1 minute 47-second video we can see many people wrapped around with a white cloth from head to toe. Interestingly, we also witness those people lying on the ground like corpses, wearing sandals on their feet. Some people even moved, which was more shocking.
Al Jazeera Pre-Shooting preparations pic.twitter.com/qwsKYRedyw
— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) October 28, 2023
This video was shared with a claim stating that “a dead body that was dying and itching while wearing slippers.” The users further added that these are ‘Al Jazeera Pre-Shooting preparations.’ This post shared by many users with similar claims can be seen here, here, and here. Come, let’s check this weird interesting claim.
What’s the truth?
After doing a reverse image search using the keyframes of the viral clip, we found out that, originally the video was shared on the YouTube page of Al Badil, an Egyptian news outlet on 28 October 2013. This video is slightly longer than the shared viral video. The video is captioned as ‘A representation of dead bodies inside Al-Azhar University.’
According to the video’s description box, “A representation of dead bodies inside Al-Azhar University Photographed by Mustafa Darwish, edited by Muhammad Anwar.
Dozens of Muslim Brotherhood students, at Al-Azhar University, organized a massive demonstration in front of the college administration building, and Brotherhood students at Al-Azhar University joined the girls’ and boys’ marches side by side, in one march, meeting between the Faculty of Medicine and Engineering building next to the Al-Azhar University presidency building, after touring around The university campus to mobilize students and disrupt studies, as the marches headed to the College of Engineering.”
The same newspaper outlet Al Badil published more videos during this protest in Egypt on the same day.
This clearly proves that the viral video is ten years old and from 2013 and not from 2023.
Also, we got articles published on October 2013 by Reuters titled as “Student protests at Egypt’s al-Azhar challenge army” and “Egyptian students protest after Brotherhood leader arrested.”
This clarifies that the video is old and from Egypt student’s protest and in no way connected to the ongoing Israel- Hamas war.
Also, this same video has a history of finding new ways to the top of the domain with misleading claims from 2018 can be seen here and here.
All this evidence solidifies the truth that this viral video was circulated with false claims earlier and could be used in the future with another fictional claim. So, we request you readers to be aware of this particular clip doing rounds on the internet since 2013.
Conclusion:
Therefore, we conclude that the circulated viral video is from 2013 and has no links to the current war in Israel and Gaza. In reality, the video is a staged protest done by Egypt’s Al-Azhar University students.
