Fact Check: Viral Video Appearing to Show Women Captured by Hamas

A video shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, that claims to show a group of women taken hostage by Palestinian paramilitary organization Hamas during Saturday's unprecedented attack on Israel has become viral, gathering over 6.7 million views.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians are estimated to have been kidnapped by Hamas fighters during their surprise attack by land, sea, and air on Israel. They are being kept hostages as the conflict unfolds.

While there is no definite information about where hostages are being kept or what their conditions are, many are assumed to have been taken at the Nova music festival—a rave in the plains of the Negev Desert near Urim, close to the Gaza strip—which was stormed by Hamas gunmen on Saturday. Social media videos shows the Hamas fighters seizing attendees and putting them on their vehicles.

The Claim

A video shared by X user Ian Miles Cheong, a self-described social media influencer who hosts a Telegram channel called "Culture War Room" which counts over 17,000 subscribers, shows a group of young women allegedly being held hostage by Hamas.

"This appears to be a video of scores of women who were captured at the outdoor rave by Hamas," Cheong wrote, casting doubt over the legitimacy of the video himself.

The clip shows a group of young women sitting and standing in a room, with most looking at their phones. Towards the end of the 55-second video, the women appear agitated as an apparently armed man enters the room.

Another account shared the same clip, writing: "This appears to be video of women who were captured at the outdoor rave by Hamas. Officially over 750 Israelis are still missing and unaccounted for."

Users on social media have questioned the legitimacy of the video, with some pointing out that if the women were held hostage it wouldn't make sense for them to have their phones, while others pointed out that they may have been allowed to keep them by their captors.

The Facts

According to an initial assessment by Israel's military authorities, at least 150 Israeli soldiers and civilians were taken hostage by Hamas on Saturday. Nationals from other countries, including the U.S. and France, might have been captured by the Palestinian fighters, but there's no definitive information yet of whether their citizens are among those being held.

In a statement on Monday, President Joe Biden said it was "likely" American citizens are among those captured by Hamas. He added that the U.S. government is working with Israeli authorities in "every aspect of the hostage crisis."

As there is no clear information about where the hostages are being held, there's also very little evidence of their conditions. The identity of some of the hostages have been confirmed by their relatives.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since declared a siege of Gaza, leaving its residents without water or electricity. Netanyahu also warned Israelis to brace themselves for a long and difficult war which he said will change the Middle East.

But every response from Israel to the Hamas attack is complicated by the presence of Israeli hostages in Gaza, especially as authorities don't know where they are being detained.

On Tuesday, Israel launched an air strike on Gaza despite a threat by Hamas that an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing on civilians without warning.

The estimated death toll after the initial attack and the fighting that has followed is 1,600 as of Tuesday morning, according to the Associated Press, with thousands more wounded on both Palestinian and Israeli sides.

The Ruling

Unverified.

The fate of the hostages captured by Hamas have spurred some strong emotions among the Israeli and international public. As a result, there is a lot of misleading and unverified information being shared on social media and elsewhere online about them.

This clip, allegedly showing a group of women held hostages by Hamas fighters, was originally shared online on October 8 to the Telegram channel "Current news on Telegram—the largest news group in Israel."

The Telegram post doesn't have a corresponding caption, so Newsweek was unable to verify if the footage shows women who were captured at the Nova music festival.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK