Does this photo show Hamas taking 40 Israeli soldiers as hostages in the Hamas-Israel conflict in the fall of 2023? No, that's not true: The photo is from 2022 and shows Hamas fighters training at a facility in the Gaza Strip with people in Israel Defense Forces uniforms. However, they are not real Israeli soldiers but instead are part of the training exercise.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok by @bouzayenkais82 on October 7, 2023, with a caption (translated from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff) that read:
40 Israeli soldiers were taken as hostages now
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Sat Nov 11 12:42:01 2023 UTC)
The claim on TikTok was widely shared following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, such as here, here and here.
Lead Stories conducted a reverse image search on Google Lens (archived here) of the photo in the claim. A version of the image was published by the Palestinian news website and network The Palestinian Information Center, alongside additional photos from the same event, on December 28, 2022, under the title "Joint maneuvers for the resistance factions in Gaza."
(Source: The Palestinian Information Center screenshot taken on Sat Nov 11 13:35 2023 UTC)
The widely circulated photo on TikTok, seemingly depicting Hamas taking 40 Israeli soldiers as hostages, instead captures a training exercise in 2022 by Hamas fighters using people dressed in Israeli military uniforms.
