Claim
A video has gone viral on social media with the claim: “A U.S. minister called for killing all Palestinians, so a Palestinian journalist attacked her.” The video shows a person lunging at a woman sitting behind a bench in a room with the U.S. flag. It is being claimed that the person who lunged is a Palestinian journalist and the woman behind the bench is a U.S. minister. According to the viral posts, the journalist attacked her in protest of the U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza genocide.
Watch the video here, here, here, here, here & here.
Newschecker has verified that the claim is false.
Fact
To verify the viral video allegedly showing a Palestinian journalist attacking a U.S. minister, we conducted a preliminary reverse image search. Our investigation found several digital footprints of the same video from a year ago on YouTube and other social media platforms.
Watch similar videos here: (1, 2& 3)
According to two separate posts by TIME and the Associated Press, the incident took place on January 4, 2024, in a county district court in Las Vegas, Nevada. A judge was announcing a defendant’s sentence when the defendant suddenly lunged at the judge in an unprovoked attack.
See reports related to this incident here – CNN, NBC News.
Protests against the Gaza genocide are currently taking place globally, with many countries, including the United States, expressing solidarity with Palestinians. Meanwhile, an unrelated and old video containing the aforementioned false claim has resurfaced and is being widely circulated.
Our investigation confirms that the video does not feature any Palestinian journalist, and the woman in the video is not a U.S. minister. Rather, she is a judge at a county district court.
Result: False
Our Sources:
CNN, NBC NewsAPTIME
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