Welfare Party’s Flag is mistaken for Italy’s and is shared to ridicule Keralites supporting Palestine.
Rating
Claim
Hamas terrorists peaceful supporters in Kerala gathered for support to Gaza, instead of carrying Palestine flag 🇵🇸 they carried Italy Flag 🇮🇹
Explanation
The Israel-Hamas war was started on October 7. Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas started a series of coordinated attacks and Israel retaliated. The death toll has crossed 5000. Multiple foreign nationals are also being killed in the ongoing war. Palestinian death toll is surging which also includes the death of around 1500 children.
https://twitter.com/tajinderbagga/status/1715722358814871804?s=46&t=kIszbQH_arRSG8kPbuGeZw
Some countries have extended their support to Israel and some to Palestine. Meanwhile, a video of a protest rally showing people from India’s Kerala supporting Palestine is shared widely to claim that they are using the Italian flag instead of Palestine’s to show support for Palestine. Some of the posts with such a claim can be seen here and here.
What is the truth?
When watching the video carefully we found the words: “We Indians stand with Gaza Res… Welfare Party Kerala” on the big banner in the front. When searching the social media pages of ‘Welfare Party Kerala’ we found an image of the same banner from the protest on its Facebook page.
The X account of ‘Welfare Party Kerala’ is found carrying matching visuals from the viral video. The caption of this post mentions that the Welfare Party is protesting in support of Palestine.
We Indians with Gaza
Huge protest in Kerala, India by #WelfareParty in support Palestine.#Gaza #GazaHospital #ısrael #PalestinianGenocide #Palestine #India pic.twitter.com/JHPlQzFIVi
— Welfare Party Kerala (@Welfarepartyker) October 20, 2023
In addition to it, we found the big banner matching in both the viral video and the one in the X post. Adding to it, ‘Free Palestine’ letters behind the banner, other pamphlets in the crowd, and the building behind the rally are found matching in the videos. This proves that the viral video is of the protest by Welfare Party.
We also found multiple other posts related to the Welfare Party’s protest in support of Palestine on its Facebook page. One such post carries a set of photos from the rally. The flag seen in one of the images is found with a logo and the words ‘Welfare Party’ written on it. The same is also found on the page’s profile image. When checking the photo we found it to be the flag of Welfare Party.
We found multiple old social media posts and YouTube videos mentioning the flag as Welfare Party’s. We also found the same words written on the flags seen in the viral video.
Since the flag of Welfare Party is similar to that of Italy, people assume it to be Italy’s flag by mistake.
Conclusion
It is found that the Welfare Party’s flag in the rally organised by Welfare party in support of Palestine is mistaken as the Italian flag and is used to ridicule Palestine supporters from Kerala.
