FACT CHECK: Post Claims To Show Mossad Calling Deceased US Airman Its Enemy

Elias Atienza | Senior Reporter

A post shared on X claims the Mossad, an Israeli spy agency, called a United States airman who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in the U.S. their enemy in a tweet.

Verdict: False

The account in the image does not belong to the Mossad.

Fact Check:

U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell died in late Feb. after he set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy to protest the country’s campaign against the Gaza Strip, according to The New York Times.

Social media users are claiming the Mossad called Bushnell their enemy. One user wrote, “ISRAEL MOSSAD: Mossad called a US soldier their enemy.”

This message, though, is not from the Mossad. The Mossad links to its official X account on its website. Said X account has not tweeted since September 2020.

If the Mossad had actually tweeted this, media outlets would have covered it, yet none have. A wider internet search also did not yield any results for the Mossad tweeting about Bushnell.

The account @MossadiL does not actually belong to the Mossad. EuroNews reported in November 2023 that it was a fake Mossad account. (RELATED: Claims Of Mass IDF Casualties Lack Evidence)

AFP Fact Check also debunked the claim. BBC Verify journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh previously debunked a claim from this account in October 2023.

“Thread: Online misinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict – Day 10 This video, viewed 2.3 million times, doesn’t show Israel’s Iron Beam directed energy weapon air defence system. It’s from the video game Arma 3. And the post is from a fake Mossad account with Twitter Blue,” Sardarizadeh tweeted at the time.

Elias Atienza

Senior Reporter
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