France 24 investigated and published an article on this controversy - which happened during the Israeli bombings of Gaza in May.

• France 24 - How pro-Israel trolls created fake news about a child 'drowned' by the Israeli army

Summary:

• A sock-puppet account on Twitter, by the name of @HouriaTah, spread a picture of a boy who they claimed was killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza back in May.

  • Link to the original tweet.
    • The account in-question was created in May and soon self-deleted.

Turns out that a pro-Israel FB group,"Neurchi de Sionisme décomplexé", was behind the photo.

• A member of "Neurchi de Sionisme décomplexé" created and spread the picture online. Another member of the FB group asked the group to amplify the post on Twitter to make it go viral.

• The photo was easily recognizable to French users, who promptly called it out - but to the uninformed, it was viewed completely differently. So they re-tweeted it, thinking it was true.

• The intent was to get pro-Palestinian users to notice it, at which point other pro-Israel users could then point out that it was fake.

  • Note the hateful responses from some pro-Israel users.

The ultimate goal was to discredit the Palestinian cause amidst the outrage over the bombings of Gaza.

France 24 contacted the pro-Israel FB group, who admitted that one of their members was responsible for the fake news. Yet, they denied participating as a group.