Claim of same girl seen in different Gaza videos fuels allegations of staged footage
A girl seen crying out as she is desperately trying to get food at a charity kitchen has been juxtaposed with another video showing a similar-looking girl
Claim
The claim that the same girl is seen in two different videos from Gaza has fuelled speculations that footage showing the suffering in the enclave is staged.
A girl seen crying out as she is desperately trying to get food at a charity kitchen has been juxtaposed with another video showing a similar-looking girl in the backseat of a car crying as she is reportedly being evacuated after a bombing.
Background
Allegations of staged scenes from Gaza amid starvation and bombings have been spreading on social media with users often referring to the stream of footage depicting the suffering in the besieged enclave as "Pallywood".
On May 16, an account on X with the handle @GAZAWOOD1 with over 76,000 followers juxtaposed two videos, one showing a chaotic scene at a charity kitchen with children being crushed as they try to get food and another showing a local journalist transporting crying and terrified children in his car after a bombing. The account suggests that the girls seen in both videos are the same ones and the events depicted are staged.
The post was pinned to the top of the account and shared more than 3,100 times with over 640,000 views, according to the metrics displayed under it.
The account describes itself as "Investigating how staged media shapes global conflict narratives. Analyzing footage, exposing patterns". It states the user's location as Israel and frequently posts footage from Gaza claiming to expose the same children appearing in different videos.
Method
Both videos displayed the names of those who filmed them.
The footage on the left from the charity kitchen was filmed by Doaa Albaz, who could be found on Instagram as well as other social media platforms. She describes herself as a freelance photographer. She regularly posts photos and videos including of herself.
The Israeli news site +972 has published images by her in the past and describes her as a "Palestinian photographer from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, currently displaced in Khan Younis".
Her photos were also distributed by Turkey's Anadolu Agency, according to an Al Jazeera report crediting her. While the exact footage credit to her in the X post was not published there, she published photos and video from the same scene showing the same children on May 2. They are location tagged as Khan Younis in southern Gaza. She published one further video evidently taken at the same time on May 9.
This material provided a very clear view of both the girls claimed to be seen in both videos on the X post.
The footage from inside the car belongs to Mahmoud Abu Salama, a reporter with Al Ghad TV -- a news organisation that publishes from Jordan. He published the footage for the first time on his Instagram account on May 16 and described it as shot on northern Gaza. In a previous video published a short time earlier and described as showing the scene of the bombing he said it was shot in Beit Lahia, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
We compared images of the older girl in both videos with the help of the additional material by Doaa Albaz and honed in on the teeth. The footage and photos showed the girl at the charity kitchen to have a chipped front tooth. However, in the video in the car, the girl does not have the same chipped tooth and the teeth also appear further apart.
We also attempted to compare profile shots of the same girl which appeared to show differently shaped noses. However, the limited nature of the footage inside the car did not capture a clear outline of the nose as seen from the side.
The fact that the footage from the site of the bombing was published after the footage from the soup kitchen indicates that it was newer. However, the tooth was chipped already in the earlier published video from the soup kitchen.
The child to the left in the frame of the video in the car is more difficult to visualise. Another video posted by Doaa Albaz on Instagram of the same scene does appear to show that the child may have had longer and darker hair. However, this could not be confirmed based on the limited nature of the footage. There is nothing to confirm that the child is the same one.
Rating
A visual analysis of additional footage and photos showing the scene at the soup kitchen shows the older girl in the footage is not the same based on her teeth. There is nothing to suggest that the other child is the same based on the limited nature of the video from the car.
Sources
X (2025). Available at: A new scene from Gaza is going viral... [Accessed 28 May 2025].
Abu Salama, M. (2025). Available at: Israeli massacre after bombing a vehicle... [online] Instagram [Accessed 28 May 2025].
Abu Salama, M. (2025). Available at: From journalism to humanitarian work in the absence of ambulances... [online] Instagram [Accessed 28 May 2025].
Albaz, D. (2025). Available at: _doaa_mohammad [online] Instagram [Accessed 28 May 2025].
Albaz, D. (2025). Available at: Children in Gaza are dying of hunger [online] Instagram [Accessed 28 May 2025].
Albaz, D. (2025). Available at: Children scream for food as famine spreads in the Gaza Strip. [online] Instagram [Accessed 28 May 2025].
Albaz, D. (2025). Available at: There are no words to describe the scenes of hunger... [online] Instagram [Accessed 28 May 2025].
Al Jazeera. (2025). Available at: I stayed until the end, Dr Abu Nujaila. We will remember and rebuild [online]. [Accessed 28 May 2025].
+972 (2024). Available at: Doaa Albaz [online] [Accessed 28 May 2025].