A picture shows General John Pagri, Commander of the Special Tasks Battalion in the US army, who was recently killed in the Gaza Strip.
There’s no evidence that any US army general has recently been killed in Gaza, and a defence official confirmed there is no US general with this name. This is an old image taken in Iraq of soldiers with different names.
A picture is being shared on social media alongside claims it shows a US army general who has recently been killed in the Gaza Strip.
One post on X (formerly Twitter), shared more than 7,200 times, is captioned: “BREAKING: Reports confirm the death of General John Pagri, Commander of the Special Tasks Battalion in the U.S. Army, in the Gaza Strip.” It has also been shared on Facebook and Instagram.
But there’s no evidence these reports are genuine. The photo used is at least 15 years old, and shows US soldiers in Iraq with different names.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense told Full Fact the posts are false and that there are no US service members in Gaza. A defence official also confirmed that there is no US army general named John Pagri.
A reverse image search reveals the picture was taken in Iraq. According to an archived version of a 2009 blog post on a US military website, the image shows two soldiers, neither named John Pagri.
The Pentagon also confirmed that the camouflage pattern in the uniform seen in the photo was retired in 2019 and has since changed to Operational Camouflage Pattern.
Moreover, there are no credible reports of a US army general being killed in the Gaza Strip recently.
It’s important to consider whether something shows what it claims to before sharing it. You can read more about this in our guides on how to fact check 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 false because there is no US army general by that name and the image is an old picture of US soldiers in Iraq.
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