Lisbon, Aug. 14, 2025 (Lusa Verifica) - Two photographs of Palestinians holding empty pots are the subject of a disinformation campaign, including by official Israeli accounts. But the photos are real, and those people were waiting for food.
+++ Claim: Palestinians holding empty pots are staged by Hamas +++
During his official visit to Estonia on Wednesday, 6 August, the Israeli president showed a photo allegedly staged in Gaza, with a group of Palestinians holding empty pots in front of a food distribution centre. According to Isaac Herzog, "it was all staged, those people had food behind them" and the image was part of"Hamas propaganda efforts" (https://archive.is/YgWwJ).
These accusations were based on two recent articles in the German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Bild, about the alleged manipulation of images by Hamas to influence international public opinion. In both cases, the newspapers illustrate the texts with a photograph by Khames Alrefi, which in turn shows photographer Anas Zeyad Fteha photographing that group of starving people.
In the Süddeutsche Zeitung article of 3 August, there is no direct reference to the photographer pictured, although the newspaper writes that "there are photos of people with empty pots in Gaza that show that they are not in front of a food bank, but in front of a photographer" and puts in the caption that "the fact that these people are offering their pots to a photographer instead of a food bank doesn't mean that the photo doesn't describe the reality in Gaza" (https://archive.is/mNqji).
The case was later developed by the tabloid Bild, on 5 August, in an article with several accusations against the freelancer pictured, Anas Zeyad Fteha, and against the Turkish agency Anadolu, for which he currently works (https://archive.is/Ld4lO), but without ever presenting proof of these manipulations or identifying or mentioning the author of the photo in question, Khames Alrefi, who works for the same agency.
These accusations were amplified on social media, including in Portugal, and by various official Israeli accounts, such as that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (examples: https://archive.is/rhQJY and https://archive.is/8bJog), with criticism of the "Pallywood" propaganda - a derogatory term that results from the combination of the words Palestine and Hollywood - and with the questioning of another photo of the same place that was on the cover of Time magazine on 1 August (https://archive.is/Cnalb and https://archive.ph/aLWYM).
+++ Facts: the photos were not staged, and the people were waiting for food +++
Apart from the publication of or reference to the photo featuring Anas Fteha, neither of the two German newspapers gave any examples of manipulation or staging on the part of this or other Gaza photographers working under difficult conditions and under Hamas impositions and threats, as they denounce: https://archive.is/ReXvj.
Incidentally, this has also been a war on press freedom, with hundreds of local journalists killed (https://archive.ph/rv95f) and the few Western journalists who have so far been authorised to enter Gaza also being restricted by the conditions imposed by the Israeli army, including what they can and cannot photograph, film and show (examples: https://archive.is/Mkui0 and https://archive.is/kKjFT).
As for the origin of the photo published by the German newspapers, some reverse searches allow us to easily identify it in the Getty Images database (https://archive.is/yAdX1) as well as a series of other images captured in the same report (https://archive.is/BrfoQ), as well as a video from the same day that shows that food was distributed after the moment the photo was taken: https://archive.is/NYW0g (at 2:47), which dispels the theories of staging.
The same photographs can be found in the archives of the Anadolu agency, where the work of photographer Anas Zeyad Fteha (https://ghostarchive.org/archive/9diGV) and that of other Palestinian collaborators is also recorded, including the video that Anas Fteha recorded that day about the process of distributing food to men, women and children: https://archive.ph/CeCnV.
Lusa Verifica also identified the Pakistani Islamic organisation that runs that community kitchen, the “Khair un nisa Academy”, whose Instagram page (https://archive.is/OJhh7) reveals that the “Khola al-Badri” kitchen is used to cook and distribute hot meals to the population of that area of Gaza (https://archive.is/LLxwL), among other types of humanitarian support.
Some images also show volunteers wearing waistcoats from the Mercy Mission (https://archive.is/EFjxf), a Pakistani non-governmental organisation that seems to be collaborating in the management of that space and which has other aid sites in Gaza (https://archive.is/rnFZu).
Meanwhile, the Israeli verification project Fake Reporter analysed the same allegations and available images and concluded that the photos are real and that there is no evidence of manipulation: https://archive.is/jNhQD (you need to log in to X to see the sequence of 17 tweets, archived here: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/JAcZ7).
Misbar, an Arab fact-checking platform, did the same work and also concluded that the photo featuring Anas Zeyad Fteha is authentic (https://archive.is/JxIDU) and that the case was used for a disinformation campaign by the Israeli authorities themselves: https://archive.is/g9JAp.
On Tuesday, 12 August, the Snopes verification project, the oldest in this field still active, also concluded that the photos in question are authentic and were not staged, including the photo that was on the cover of Time magazine, and which was taken by another Palestinian photographer who also collaborates with Anadolu: https://archive.is/sIFI1.
This image has also caused a lot of ink to flow on social networks and in some media (https://archive.is/HEFYR, https://archive.is/cfORs and https://archive.is/pR87q), but so far there is no evidence of staging, as Italian fact-checker David Puente has also concluded: https://archive.is/1LjAu.
+++ Contradictory +++
Lusa Verifica sent some questions to Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Nicolas Freund, who initially published the photograph, but received no reply. However, in another article published in the same newspaper a few days later, the publication assumes that the Palestinian photographer "is actually at a food distribution centre" and that the Israeli authorities' reading was "a gross misrepresentation of the article": https://archive.is/4Zef4.
For his part, the photographer targeted by the German newspapers has shared several clarifications on his Instagram account, where he flatly refutes the accusations of manipulation or staging about the hunger situation in Gaza, returning criticisms of disinformation to the Bild newspaper (https://archive.is/C8RKC) and denouncing that he is the victim of threats because of this case: https://archive.is/Vty47.
Lusa Verifica also sent questions to the organisation responsible for that food distribution point, as well as to the Israeli Embassy in Portugal, which also shared some of the reports about the alleged staging, but received no replies.
+++ Lusa Verifica Evaluation: False +++
It is false that the two photos of a group of Palestinians holding empty bowls and pots near a Gaza community kitchen were staged, as several Israeli officials claim.
There are more photos and videos from the same place and on the exact dates that show that those people were waiting for food to be distributed and that it did take place there, where a kind of makeshift kitchen supported by a Pakistani Islamic organisation operates.
LYGA/ADB // ADB.
