The new location tool on X has revealed that a slew of users seeking donations while claiming to be posting from inside Gaza are actually outside the zone and taking advantage of the devastating war.
The social-media company recently unveiled a feature that publicly displays key background information about an account, including the location on where it’s based.
The feature has already unmasked a sprawling ecosystem of accounts taking advantage of disasters and political unrest across the world, including inside the war-torn Gaza Strip.
“New X feature ripped mask off countless fake ‘Gazan’ accounts,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“Some chap posting from Pakistan, another in London. Another manipulative abuser somewhere else. All claiming to be suffering in Gaza while in the comfort of some coffee shop far away.”
One of the accounts allegedly masquerading on X belongs to user Yasmine.muhamsd, who describes herself as a mother in Gaza struggling to survive with her children.
Many of the posts on the account include photos of a sobbing Palestinian woman holding her hungry newborn in her hands and pleading for donations.
While the account claims to be from Gaza, X’s location marker pins it to being based in India.
The account removed all of its posts since the location tool went live over the weekend.
Another account claimed to belong to a Palestinian father named Mahmoud Salma, who constantly posts about the fear of raising his two daughters in Gaza under constant Israeli bombardments.
The user appears to be impersonating the real Salma family, with the X account linking to a separate donation page from the one officially set up by the family and their friends.
The flagged X account is also shown to be based in the United Kingdom, unlike the genuine social-media accounts belonging to the family.
Mostasem A Dalloul, a journalist working in Gaza, also came under fire from the Israeli Foreign Ministry when it accused him of spreading fake news after X’s new featured flagged him to Poland.
Dalloul responded to the claims by posting a video of himself Saturday mocking the allegations as he walked around a destroyed neighborhood asking if such a scenery exists in the middle of Poland.
X notes that the country or region flagged on an account “may not be accurate and can change periodically.”
