Amid the thick fog of this information war, one word has consistently come out from behind the haze. Pro-Israeli accounts online have been deploying the word “Pallywood” as a means to undermine the plight of Gazans.

Two denialist narratives about the Israel-Hamas war have sadly become prominent online:

1- It was Israel that killed its own civilians on 7 October, not Hamas

2- Pallywood: Palestinian civilian casualties are fake crisis actors

Both are false, but get huge Twitter engagement.

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) November 13, 2023

A blend of the words “Palestine” and “Hollywood”, the term insinuates that stories of suffering coming from Gaza are contrived or embellished for propaganda purposes. The accusations range from hiring crisis actors, to doctoring footage and editing it in a dishonest way that misrepresents reality.

Detractors argue the pejorative term is a deliberate attempt to delegitimise the very real hardships endured by Gazans, and to dehumanise Palestinian lives.

A Gazan caught in the crosshairs

At the heart of the Pallywood claims made by pro-Israeli accounts online is one young Gazan in particular, Saleh Al-Jafarawi. He has repeatedly been accused of being a “crisis actor” working for Hamas who allegedly stages scenes to make himself look like a victim.

Al-Jafarawi has been actively posting videos on Instagram since the start of the war to document what is happening on the ground in Gaza. But he got caught in the crosshairs of disinformation when...

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