What was claimed
An image shows two babies in an incubator in a hospital in Gaza.
Our verdict
While this is a real photo, it was taken in Gaza in 2017, not since the outbreak of conflict in October 2023.
Image of babies in incubator in Gaza is from 2017
31 January 2024
A photo of two babies lying in an incubator, surrounded by wires and medical machines, has been shared on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) alongside a caption that implies the image was recently taken in Gaza.
The original post from Mohamad Safa, CEO of the NGO Patriotic Vision, says: “This photo needs to be the front page of every paper in the world. Premature babies at Gaza Hospitals cry desperately for help, as hospitals run out of oxygen. 50,000 pregnant women - 180 women give birth every day. Babies are being ‘delivered into hell’ with many dying.”
However, the image is over six years old. It has been online since 2017, when it appeared in an article by Middle East Monitor. The image reportedly shows “newborn babies at the intensive care unit” at “Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on June 27, 2017”, and was credited to Ali Jadallah, a photographer at Anadolu Agency.
We’ve approached Mr Safa for comment, and will update this article if he responds.
In November 2023, the United Nations and the World Health Organisation said there were an “estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, with more than 180 giving birth every day”.
Full Fact has written about many examples of misinformation relating to the war in Israel and Gaza, particularly images and videos that have been miscaptioned. It’s important to consider whether something shows what it claims to show before sharing it online. You can find information on how to do this in our guides on spotting misleading images and videos.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because this image is from 2017.