Did Hamas militants in Gaza use children as human shields while firing mortar rounds toward Israel in October 2023? No, that's not true: This video is from the Syrian civil war and was posted in 2014.
The claim appeared in several posts like this video (archived here) on TikTok on October 26, 2023, with the title "Hamas Human Shields." The video has an English text overlay that reads:
HAMAS fire's rockets while using Palestinian children as human shield
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Oct 27 15:35:55 2023 UTC)
The post includes a video of a militant firing a mortar round with children huddled together a short distance away. Beside the children, an older man is delivering a speech while the militant prepares to launch the mortar. The older man says (translated from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff):
Thanks to God who gifted us with the responsibility of building a new generation from the nation of the prophet Mohammed. To Bashar Assad and his supporters, these children will bring us victory, God willing.
These posts use a video from the Syrian civil war, showing a Syrian rebel launching a mortar round toward Assad's forces. A version of this video was uploaded to YouTube on November 6, 2014 (archived here) with the headline:
**MUST SEE** Syrian Kids Launching Mortar Together!
