A video going viral on social media shows a young girl breaking down and saying, "What do you you expect me to do? Fix it? I'm only 10." It is viral with the claim that it shows a young Palestinian girl crying in the wake of the ongoing bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces.
BOOM found this claim to be misleading; the video is from May, 2021, and shows Nadine Abdel-Taif, a 10-year-old Palestinian girl breaking down while speaking to independent news outlet Middle East Eye, after Israeli airstrikes destroyed her neighbour's house, killing 8 children and 2 women.
Islamist militant group Hamas launched one of the biggest military offensives against Israel on October 7, 2023, garnering retributive attack from Israeli forces, with ongoing bombardments on the Gaza strip, and a complete blockade of the area by Israel. So far, the conflict has claimed more than 1300 lives in Israel, and more than 1,799 Palestinians in Gaza, out of which over 600 are reportedly children. The post is viral in this backdrop.
The video was shared on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook with the caption, "What do you expect me to do, fix it? I’m only 10 years old 😢😢 I can’t fix this, I am only a kid😭😭
10years old Palestinian girl aspiring to become a doctor cry’s out 🥲"
View such posts on X here, here and here.
View such posts on Facebook here, here and here.
Fact Check
Taking cue from the video, BOOM did a keyword search with '10 year old palestinian girl what am i supposed to do', which led us to numerous news articles from 2021 about a video of Palestinian girl breaking down while speaking to the media, which went viral woldwide.
A report by the Indian Express contained a featured image which showed the exact same girl, and attributed the video to Midde-East based independent news outlet Middle East Eye.
An excerpt from the article read, "A heartbreaking video of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl, narrating the situation around her, has gone viral on social media. The 1.19-minute video, which was filmed by Middle East Eye, features the young Nadine Abdel-Taif standing around a pile of rubble after the Israeli airstrikes."
Taking cue from this, we performed a keyword search, and found a longer version of the viral video, published by Middle East Eye on its YouTube channel on May 15, 2021.
The caption of the video read, "A 10-year-old Palestinian girl breaks down while talking to MEE after Israeli air strikes destroyed her neighbour's house, killing 8 children and 2 women."
While the viral posts do indeed show a young Palestinian girl breaking down as a consequence of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, it is over two years old, and has been misleading linked to the ongoing bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces.