A video shared on Facebook allegedly shows a woman saying, “We’re prisoners of Hamas,” in Arabic.

Verdict: False

A translation of a longer iteration of the video indicates the woman discussed her dead son. Additionally, an Arabic language expert denied the claim’s validity in an email to Check Your Fact.

Fact Check:

Police in Austin, Texas have declared the recent stabbing of 23-year-old Palestinian man Zacharia Doar to be a hate crime, according to The Associated Press. Doar was allegedly stabbed near the campus of the University of Texas while in a pro-Palestine truck, the outlet reported.

The Facebook video, shared 20 times, purports to show a Palestinian woman saying, “We’re prisoners of Hamas.” The claim is made based on the video’s on-screen Arabic subtitles.

The claim is false, however. A translation of a longer iteration of the video indicates the woman discussed her dead son. “Rare courage…an elderly Palestinian woman risks her life to reach the body of her martyred son,” the translation reads. The video was shared on YouTube in November 2023 by Al Araby News.

Likewise, Taoufik Ben-Amor, an Arabic language expert at Columbia University, denied the claim’s validity in an email to Check Your Fact.

“That is not what she is saying,” Ben-Amor noted of the claim that the woman purportedly spoke about Palestinians being “prisoners of Hamas.”

“She is saying that after the [Israel Defense Forces] retreated she went back to her home and found her son dead and that she recognized him and his cellphone. She mentions his name, [says he was] 30 years old and that he was married and had kids. [There were] five members in the family,” Ben-Amor explained.

Besides Facebook, the video circulated on X, the social media platform previously called Twitter, and TikTok. Furthermore, the U.K.-based outlet Full Fact also debunked the claim made using the video’s on-screen subtitles. (RELATED: Video Claims To Show Apache Helicopter Shot Down By Hamas)

Over 26,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of the current Israel-Hamas conflict, according to The Associated Press, which cited data from the Health Ministry in Gaza.

Check Your Fact also contacted another Arabic language expert who did not immediately respond to our request for comment.