FACT CHECK: Does This Photo Show Malala Yousafzai With The Son Of Israel’s Defense Minister?
An image shared on Facebook allegedly shows Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai with the son of Israel’s minister of defense.
Verdict: False
The photo actually shows Yousafzai with her brother Khushal.
Fact Check:
An activist for women’s education, Yousafzai was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 17, becoming the youngest recipient of the award to date. Yousafzai and her father are the co-founders of the Malala Fund, an organization dedicated to promoting girls’ education worldwide.
The photo in the Facebook post shows Yousafzai posing with a young man, allegedly the son of an Israeli government official. The caption reads, “Malala with son of Israeli Defense Minister, working for education in Pakistan with first and most important lesson.”
However, the Times of Israel published a photo in 2019 of Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz with his sons that shows his children bear little resemblance to the young man pictured with Yousafzai. In reality, the young man is Yousafzai’s brother Khushal.
Yousafzai’s brothers, Khushal and Atal, are identified in a different photo featured in an April 28 article written by their father that was published by the U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times. The New York Times also published an image of Yousafzai celebrating her graduation from Oxford University with her family that shows the same people identified in her father’s article. Both photos show the same young man that is in the image being shared.
The image in question was first shared by Yousafzai on July 12, her 23rd birthday, in a tweet that says, “Chapter 23! Ready for a quarter-life crisis. Thank you so much to everyone for all the good wishes.” (RELATED: Hoax Letter Claims Missouri Public School Students Must Repeat The School Year Due To COVID-19 Closures)
This is not the first time social media users have misidentified a man pictured with Yousafzai as Gantz’s son. This month, AFP Fact Check debunked one such post that actually showed the Nobel laureate alongside Pakistani cricket player Faisal Iqbal.
