As Israel bombarded Gaza with airstrikes in the days following a surprise attack by Hamas militants, one social media user attempted to tie the escalating conflict to money provided by President Joe Biden.
“Biden doesn’t want the world to know that he is funding every angle of this conflict,” said text in an Oct. 11 Instagram post atop an image of competing missiles in the night sky.
The post listed three claims about funding provided by Biden:
“Biden unfroze $360 million in 2021 and began sending it to Palestine.”
“America sends billions every year to Israel for military aid.”
“Biden unfroze $6 billion cash for Iran on 9/11.”
This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The post misleads by leaving out critical facts to give the impression that money provided by Biden is behind the current Israeli-Hamas fight. In short, U.S. aid to Palestinians was for humanitarian reasons; Biden’s military funding to Israel continues a long tradition of U.S. aid that predates Biden’s administration; and the $6 billion of unfrozen Iranian oil money has yet to be disbursed.
Let’s take a closer look at the three claims.
Claim: “Biden unfroze $360 million in 2021 and began sending it to Palestine.”
The State Department announced in May 2021 that the U.S. was providing more than $360 million in aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. The announcement came soon after a cease-fire in an 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas.
It also reversed a decision by former President Donald Trump, who in 2018 cut off U.S. funding for humanitarian assistance to Palestinians.
The money Biden provided was for humanitarian purposes, not for military aid, as the Facebook post suggests. According to a 2021 statement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the aid would not go to Hamas, an Islamic militant group the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization in 1997. Hamas won elections in 2006 and has ruled Gaza since 2007.
“All of these funds will be administered in a way that benefit the Palestinian people — not Hamas, which has only brought misery and despair to Gaza,” Blinken said in 2021.
Claim: “America sends billions every year to Israel for military aid.”
The U.S. sends billions of dollars every year to aid Israel’s military, but it has been doing so for decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations. In fiscal years 2021 through 2023, the U.S. sent about $12.4 billion total to Israel for its defense, according to a March report from the Congressional Research Service.
The U.S. has sent more than $124 billion dollars in military aid and missile defense to Israel since 1946, according to that report.
Claim: “Biden unfroze $6 billion cash for Iran on 9/11.”
In the context of this post, this claim omits some important details. The Biden administration made a deal with Iran to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue held in South Korean banks in exchange for the release of five American prisoners held in Iran. Five Iranians held in U.S. prisons were also released as part of the deal.
The $6 billion deal was announced in August, although the administration officially told Congress on Sept. 11 that it had issued a waiver to give Iran access to the money.
In the days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, many Republicans, including presidential candidates, criticized the deal, claiming that the money could have indirectly helped fund the assault on Israel. Some argued that “money is fungible” — meaning Iran may have spent money arming Hamas knowing it would soon have access to the released funds.
Biden administration officials said none of the $6 billion, which was transferred from South Korea to Qatar’s central bank, has been disbursed to Iran yet, and any distribution would be supervised by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Blinken said in an Oct. 12 news conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, that the money can only be dispensed for humanitarian goods and that the U.S. has “strict oversight of the funds, and we retain the right to freeze them.”
Our ruling
An Instagram post said Biden is funding “every angle” of the Israel-Hamas conflict, citing $360 million in aid to the Palestinians, military funding to Israel and the unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue.
The post leaves out key context. The $360 million in aid to Palestinians was for humanitarian purposes, and didn’t go to Hamas. The U.S. has given military funding to Israel for decades. The $6 billion in Iranian oil money has yet to be disbursed, and also can be used only for humanitarian reasons.
We rate the claim Mostly False.
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NASHUA, N.H. — On the first day of a summit sponsored by the New Hampshire GOP, Republican presidential candidates emphasized support for Israel, embraced get-tough policies at the U.S.-Mexico border and advocated for federal spending cuts.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis railed against “moral equivalence” about deaths in Gaza as Israel’s military strikes back after an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants. DeSantis also said when it comes to Mexican drug cartels, he would “shoot them stone cold dead right at the southern border.”
Former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley took aim at Congressional Republicans, pointing to what she said is exorbitant spending on earmarks, a category where Republicans have outpaced Democrats.
Frontrunner and former President Donald Trump was the only leading candidate who didn’t make an appearance in Nashua. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie earned the day’s only chorus of boos when he called out Trump for promoting the false narrative that the 2020 election was rigged.
Vivek Ramaswamy joined other candidates in criticizing China. He said that we should “unshackle ourselves from the climate cult … while leaving China unchained.”
Adding an element of unexpected drama to the event, Ramaswamy walked to the podium with a Colonial-era fife and drum corps.
Here, we fact-check several of the candidates’ claims.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks to the press after his Oct. 13 speech at the GOP’s First in the Nation Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire. (Samantha Putterman/PolitiFact)
Immigration
DeSantis: “You have 7 million people coming into your country through the border illegally.”
Haley: “6 million illegal immigrants have crossed that border.”
This is Mostly False.
DeSantis and Haley misrepresent the data. Since Joe Biden took office in January 2021, U.S immigration authorities have encountered migrants about 7.2 million times at and between ports of entry. But that doesn’t mean that many migrants entered and remained in the U.S. That data shows events, not individuals, and one person can be recorded multiple times.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection data also shows that millions of those encounters led to removals.
Congress and federal government
DeSantis: Imposing a central bank digital currency would allow the government to “limit transactions for ammo and gas and all the things elites don’t like.”
This is misleading.
When DeSantis made similar remarks in April, banking experts told PolitiFact that he overstated the likelihood that such a system is possible, much less likely, to emerge in the United States — for a variety of technical, legal and political reasons.
Experts said such surveillance may be technically possible. But in practice, U.S. laws do not permit the kinds of surveillance and control that DeSantis describes.
And even if it is technologically possible,”technology does not operate in a vacuum,” said American University law professor Hilary J. Allen. Systems can achieve specific goals only “if the relevant social and legal institutions permitted such use.”
Haley: “Let’s claw back the $500 billion of unspent COVID funds that are still out there, instead of 87,000 IRS agents going after middle America.”
The claim about the unspent COVID-19 funds is Half True, and the claim about 87,000 IRS agents is misleading.
Government estimates show that more than $400 billion in pandemic relief money remained unspent as of Jan. 31. But a majority of the money has been allocated, meaning it’s earmarked to be spent and wouldn’t be eligible to be rescinded. Estimates about how much remains unspent and unallocated range from $70 billion to $90.5 billion.
The government injected more money into the IRS as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. But the 87,000 figure includes all new hires — such as information technology experts and customer service representatives — not just enforcement staff. And many of those hires would go toward holding staff numbers steady in the face of budget cuts and retirements. About 7,000 new hires will focus on enforcement, making sure wealthy taxpayers and big corporations pay their taxes, according to an April 2023 IRS report.
Haley: “Congress has only put out a budget four times in 40 years on time.”
This is correct. The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research group, wrote earlier this year that Congress has passed its required appropriations measures on time only four times in the modern budgeting era.
Those were in fiscal years 1977, 1989, 1995 and 1997.
Ramaswamy: “Government agencies that should not exist … we will get in there and shut them down.”
Ramaswamy repeated his promise to reduce the federal workforce by 75% during an eight-year presidency. Regardless of whether it’s a good or bad idea, he could be unable to carry it out on his own.
Legal experts said sweeping cuts must be approved by Congress, and cannot be accomplished by presidential action alone.
“The only way this could be changed would be for Congress to grant the president new reorganization authority,” said Donald F. Kettl, the former dean of the University of Maryland’s public policy school. “That seems highly unlikely.”
Anne Marie Lofaso, a West Virginia University law professor, said Ramaswamy is arguing that the president “can unilaterally repeal a statute that authorizes the establishment of a government agency. That would be a radical revision of presidential power and a likely violation of separation of powers.”
GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis addresses the First in the Nation Summit in Nashua, N.H., on Oct. 13. (Louis Jacobson/PolitiFact)
Fentanyl
DeSantis: In Florida, “we had an 18-month-old baby crawling on the carpet of an AirBnB rental, and presumably whoever had it before was doing drugs. There was fentanyl residue in the carpet. The baby came in contact with it. And the baby died.”
That’s what a March lawsuit alleges.
Enora Lavenir, a 19-month-old visiting Wellington, Florida, died Aug. 7, 2021, at an AirBnB rental where her family was staying.
The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the toddler died of acute fentanyl toxicity, NBC News reported when the lawsuit was filed. The family, who was visiting from France at the time of their AirBnB stay, filed a wrongful death lawsuit that said the property had a history of being used for parties.
NBC reported that a sheriff’s incident report showed investigators interviewed the prior renter, who said cocaine and marijuana were used during his stay, but not fentanyl. The sheriff’s office said the death is listed as accidental and the case is now closed.
Education
Haley: “Only 29% of our eighth graders in our country are proficient in reading. Only 26% of our eighth graders are proficient in math.”
This is accurate.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress report — known as the nation’s report card — tests fourth and eighth graders on key academic subjects. The 2022 report, the first since the COVID-19 pandemic began, found that eighth grade reading scores declined in several states, and no state showed significant improvement, with an average 29% being proficient nationally. This continued a downward trend that predated the pandemic, but represented the largest average reading score decline since 1990.
The report also found that eighth grade math scores fell in nearly every state, with 26% rated as proficient, down from 34% in 2019.
Electric vehicles
DeSantis: “Places like California, they’re forcing all new cars, at a certain date, in the pretty close future, to be electric.”
This is accurate.
California has instituted an escalating scale for the percentage of new zero-emission cars and light trucks that must be sold on car lots — 35% by 2026, 68% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. The state did not ban existing gasoline-powered cars.
EXETER, N.H. — After gaining ground in Republican presidential primary polling, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley brought her message of budgetary restraint and heightened immigration control to voters packed inside of an historic town hall.
Haley and other Republican presidential candidates are gathering for campaign events and a state Republican Party summit in New Hampshire, which will host the first-in-the-nation primary slated for Jan. 23. PolitiFact reporters are in the state to cover the candidates in partnership with WMUR in Manchester, New Hampshire, and WCVB in Boston.
During the event, hosted by USA Today, Haley received applause for promoting parental control in the classroom; instituting term limits for Congress; preventing Chinese entities from buying U.S. land; and “defunding” sanctuary cities for immigrants illegally in the United States.
“Instead of catch-and-release,” Haley said, “we’ll do catch and deport.”
Haley went after Republicans in Congress for approving more pet projects, known as earmarks, than Democrats, and she reminded the audience that Republicans have lost seven out of the past eight presidential election popular votes. When asked by an audience member how she would “represent the middle,” Haley described her response to the mass murder of Black parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, when she took down the Confederate flag from the state’s Capitol.
Haley also distanced herself from former President Donald Trump, saying he “was the right president at the right time. I don’t think he’s the right president now.”
Haley, 51, urged a “competency test” for candidates over 75 years old. “We need people at the top of their game,” she said.
New Hampshire voters listen to Nikki Haley at a town hall in Exeter, N.H. (Louis Jacobson/PolitiFact)
Here’s our assessment of some of the claims she made in the stump speech and her responses to audience questions.
On education, Haley promised to increase children’s proficiency levels. She said, “29% of eighth graders in our country are proficient in reading. 29%. 26% of eighth graders are proficient in math. That’s it.“
This is accurate. The National Assessment of Educational Progress report — known as the nation’s report card — tests fourth and eighth graders on key academic subjects. The 2022 report, the first since the COVID-19 pandemic, found that math scores for eighth graders fell in nearly every state, with 26% rating as proficient, down from 34% in 2019.
Reading scores also declined among eighth graders in several states and no state showed significant improvement, the report found. This continued a downward trend that predated the pandemic but represented the largest largest average score decline in reading since 1990.
Haley also took aim at federal spending. She said, “Let’s claw back the $500 billion of unspent COVID that are out there instead of 87,000 IRS agents going after middle America.”
Haley’s claim about the unspent COVID-19 funds is Half True. Government estimates show that more than $400 billion in pandemic relief money remained unspent as of Jan. 31. But a majority of the money has been allocated, meaning it’s earmarked to be spent and wouldn’t be eligible for rescission. Estimates about how much remains unspent and unallocated range from $70 billion to $90.5 billion.
The government injected more money into the IRS as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, but the 87,000 figure includes new employees across the agency, including information technology experts and customer service representatives, not just enforcement staff. And many of those hires would go toward holding staff numbers steady in the face of budget cuts and retirements. About 7,000 new hires will focus on enforcing that wealthy taxpayers and big corporations pay their taxes, according to an April 2023 IRS report.
Haley also said there are “hundreds of billions of dollars of COVID fraud that we know exist, one out of every $7“ spent.
This is mostly right. A September Government Accountability Office report found that fraudsters may have stolen between $100 billion and $135 billion in federal unemployment aid during the COVID-19 pandemic. This comes out to about one out of every seven dollars set aside for unemployed Americans during the public health emergency.
Haley also took shots at Congress. “They’ve only put out a budget four times in 40 years on time. Four times.“
This is correct. The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research group, wrote earlier this year that Congress has passed its required appropriations measures only four times in the modern budgeting era.
Those were in fiscal years 1977, 1989, 1995 and 1997.
Asked about her position on a national policy for abortion, Haley told the audience that there aren’t enough votes in the Senate to pass a national ban. “We may have 45 pro-life senators,” she said, which is short of the 60 votes needed to pass a national ban, given the Senate’s rules. “We haven’t had 60 Republicans in over 100 years,” Haley said.
This is correct. The last time the Republicans had 60 Senate votes was from 1909 to 1911.
Haley also touched on the public health danger from fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. “More people have died of fentanyl than the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars combined,” she said.
This is accurate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that about 77,000 Americans died from synthetic opioids overdoses in the 12 months ending in April of this year, according to a provisional estimate. Those three wars killed more than 65,000 Americans.
PolitiFact Copy Chief Matthew Crowley contributed to this report.
Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.
Quick Take
Since fighting broke out between Israel and Hamas militantson Oct. 7, misinformation about the war has circulated online. But a widely viewed and shared video supposedly correcting “three lies about Palestine” and “atrocity propaganda” being spread by Israel and its supporters also gets some of the facts wrong.
Full Story
Social media platforms have hosted a flood of questionable information — some of it unverified and some of it intentionally misleading — since war broke out between Hamas and Israel on Oct. 7.
As of Oct. 12, according to the United Nations, more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals had died and at least 1,100 Palestinians had died in the fighting — many of them civilians on both sides.
We’ve written about some claims related to the war already. Below we’ll lay out what we know about three major issues that have been the subject of many false, misleading or unsubstantiated social media posts: Claims that Hamas beheaded babies, raped women, and killed hundreds of people at a music festival.
One video that’s been shared on Facebook and Instagram includes claims about all three issues, so we’ll use that as our example. The video is presented as though it is fact-checking the claims, but it gets some things wrong, and it presents assumptions as fact.
In this particular video, the narrator tries to make the case that there is no evidence of mass shootings by Hamas “resistance fighters,” or atrocities like rape or beheading babies, and Israel and its supporters are spreading propaganda to justify Israeli plans to commit atrocities against Palestinians.
The events in Israel and the Gaza Strip are still unfolding, and the facts underlying many claims remain unclear. We’ll update this report if more information becomes available.
More Than 200 Killed at a Concert in Israel
At least 260 people were killed at an outdoor concert in southern Israel on Oct. 7, but the video falsely claims that it didn’t happen. This is a claim that the video gets completely wrong.
The narrator says: “250 people were killed at a concert. False.”
But there’s plenty of evidence. There is video of the aftermath, news reports about the attack, interviews with survivors, and reports about the number of victims from an Israeli rescue organization.
“Saturday’s attack on the open-air Tribe of Nova music festival is believed to be the worst civilian massacre in Israeli history, with at least 260 dead and a still undetermined number taken hostage,” the Associated Press reported.
Unsupported Claim of 40 Beheaded Babies
The narrator of the video says that “no evidence has been provided” for the viral claim that “40 babies” were “beheaded” by Hamas. That is true.
The Israeli government has posted graphic photos that purportedly show babies who were killed and/or burned by the militant group, but there were no photos showing decapitations.
Israeli rescue teams wait next to ambulances parked just outside the southern city of Sderot to evacuate the wounded after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images.
The unsupported claim about dozens of child beheadings gained traction after live news reports from Nicole Zedeck, a correspondent forIsrael-based i24NEWS, who was reporting from the scene of an attack near the Israel-Gaza border. In videos the news service posted to X on Oct. 10, Zedeck said Israeli soldiers told her what they witnessed.
In one clip, she said “about 40 babies at least,” who were dead, according to a commander, “were taken out on gurneys.” In another clip, she said babies had “their heads cut off, they said” – but she never mentioned a number.
The claim about “40 babies beheaded” appears to be a combination of those two separate details that Zedeck relayed during the live broadcasts. She did not make that claim herself, as the social media video wrongly asserts.
In fact, CNN reported on Oct. 12 that an unnamed Israeli official told the news outlet that the Israeli government had not confirmed claims, including from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesperson, that babies were beheaded.
“There have been cases of Hamas militants carrying out beheadings and other ISIS-style atrocities. However, we cannot confirm if the victims were men or women, soldiers or civilians, adults or children,” the unnamed official was quoted as saying.
The White House also has walked back President Joe Biden’s false suggestion that he saw photographic evidence of children with their heads cut off.
“I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children,” Biden said in an Oct. 11 meeting with Jewish community leaders.
Biden administration officials later told reporters he was referring to unconfirmed reports from news outlets and Israeli officials about alleged child decapitations.
Claims of Suspected Rapes
The video says that allegations of rape by Hamas militants are “false,” adding, “There is no evidence of this whatsoever.”
It’s true that there is limited evidence of specific cases of rape during the attack by Hamas. The Los Angeles Times, for example, removed a reference to rape from an Oct. 9 opinion piece because the reports hadn’t been substantiated.
However, some elected officials have referred to rape in their remarks about Hamas militants in Israel. Biden, for example, listed rape among the war atrocities suffered by Israelis after he’d been advised about it on a phone call with Netanyahu.
There has also been at least one news article, from the Times of Israel, reporting that two videos “have raised concerns of sexual assault against women.” One video shows a woman who has blood on her pants being taken out of a vehicle in Gaza, according to the article, and the other shows a woman in her underwear lying face down in a truck. The article did not link to the videos.
Rape is often used as a tactic of war and has a long history as such, although there are no publicly confirmed examples of sexual assault.
Sources
Ohlheiser, A.W. “Don’t believe everything you see and hear about Israel and Palestine.” Vox. 12 Oct 2023.
Reuters. “What’s the Israel-Palestinian conflict about and how did it start?” 11 Oct 2023.
United Nations. Press release. “Israel/occupied Palestinian territory: UN experts deplore attacks on civilians, call for truce and urge international community to address root causes of violence.” 12 Oct 2023.
Zinsner, Hadleigh. “Viral Video Clip Misrepresents Trump Remarks on Israel.” FactCheck.org. 10 Oct 2023.
Farley, Robert and Lori Robertson. “Republican Claims on Hamas Attack and Iran Funds Distort the Facts.” FactCheck.org. Updated 12 Oct 2023.
Farley, Robert. “Post Paints Misleading Picture of Biden’s Financial Support for Israel and Palestinians.” FactCheck.org. 11 Oct 2023.
Hale Spencer, Saranac. “Posts Share Bogus Memo to Falsely Claim U.S. Is Sending Additional $8 Billion to Israel.” FactCheck.org. 12 Oct 2023.
Tenbarge, Kat and Melissa Chan. “Unverified reports of ’40 babies beheaded’ in Israel-Hamas war inflame social media.” NBC News. 12 Oct 2023.
Chance, Matthew, et al. “Israeli official says government cannot confirm babies were beheaded in Hamas attack.” CNN. 12 Oct 2023.
Izso, Laurena and Mostafa Salem. “Babies and toddlers were found with ‘heads decapitated’ in Kfar Aza, Netanyahu spokesperson says.” CNN. 11 Oct 2023.
White House. “Remarks by President Biden and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff at Roundtable with Jewish Community Leaders.” Transcript. 11 Oct 2023.
Alexander, Peter, et al. “White House clarifies Biden’s claim he saw photos of terrorists beheading children in Israel-Hamas war.” NBC News. 11 Oct 2023.
Liptak, Kevin. “White House says Biden’s remark on photos of children was intended to ‘underscore the utter depravity’ of Hamas attack.” CNN. 12 Oct 2023.
Goldberg, Jonah. “Column: Who’s to blame for the Hamas attack on Israel? That debate is already going off the rails.” Los Angeles Times. 9 Oct 2023.
Biden, Joe. “President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Terrorist Attacks in Israel.” YouTube. 10 Oct 2023.
Sharon, Jeremy. “Footage of Hamas assault on civilians shows likely war crimes, experts say.” Times of Israel. 8 Oct 2023.
U.N. Women. “Rape as a Tactic of War.” Accessed 13 Oct 2023.
Gillet, Francesca and Alice Cuddy. “Israeli music festival: 260 bodies recovered from site where people fled in hail of bullets.” BBC. 9 Oct 2023.
Debre, Isabel and Michael Biesecker. “Israeli survivors recount terror at music festival, where Hamas militants killed at least 260.” Associated Press. 9 Oct 2023.
Media Line (@themedialine). “Survivors From the South: Victims of Hamas’ Terror Speak From Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.” YouTube. 9 Oct 2023.
Social media users are claiming that the United Nations is funding military service members to cross the U.S. border. Their proof: a video of a man showing a debit card, complaining that the U.N. is late to pay him.
The video, attached to Oct. 8 Instagram posts, had text reading: “UN is paying them to cross our border. Biden is paying them to cross our border. These are paid soldiers. MERCENARIES!”
In an interview on the video, the man spoke in Spanish, saying his debit card is empty because “they haven’t deposited anything.” He showed the card, which had a logo of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
(Screenshots from Instagram)
These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The video was uploaded on X on Jan. 14, 2022, by Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors stricter immigration laws.
Bensman featured the same man in a January 2022 report, and identified him as Luis Ponce from Haiti. Bensman wrote that Ponce was waiting outside of a U.N. office in Tapachula, Mexico, to complain to the U.N. because the agency had not recharged his debit card.
Bensman wrote that this was part of the U.N.’s “cash-based interventions.” According to the U.N. refugee agency, cash-based interventions refer to “all interventions in which cash or vouchers for goods or services are provided to refugees and other persons of concern on an individual or community basis.”
The U.N. refugee agency ensures that the person stays in the asylum process and that the person intends to stay in Mexico before approving humanitarian cash assistance.
Pamela Luna, a spokesperson for the U.N. refugee agency’s Mexico branch, told PolitiFact that this cash assistance program is meant for the “most vulnerable asylum seekers.” To obtain this aid, she said, asylum seekers must claim asylum in Mexico, express their will to remain in Mexico and register with the agency.
The registration process identifies asylum seekers in Mexico, including children at risk of harm including abuse and exploitation, single mothers, gender-violence survivors and people with medical needs. (PolitiFact couldn’t find more information about Ponce.) The agency then refers these people to assistance systems. In the most vulnerable cases, the U.N. agency provides cash aid.
Luna said that of the people who seek asylum in Mexico, less than 10% receive this cash assistance. She added that most people use this aid to pay rent and buy food.
The cash assistance comes with a time limit, usually three to four months. After that, the aid expires. It doesn’t include cash or vouchers given to governments or other state actors, or payments to humanitarian workers or service providers, the U.N. agency said.
The U.N. refugee agency issues cash assistance to help asylum seekers, not to pay military service members to enter the U.S. We rate that claim False.
PolitiFact reporter Maria Briceño contributed to this report.
Inhalable or spray versions of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are still in development and don’t have regulatory approval. Posts online are distorting recent research from Yale University to falsely claim that governments have approved such products to mass vaccinate people without their consent in a plot involving Bill Gates.
Full Story
Some scientists are working on creating inhalable or nasal spray mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. Such vaccines have the potential to better prevent infection or transmission of the virus than more typical vaccines that are injected. These vaccines, once authorized or approved, would be taken just like any other vaccine, with a person choosing to be vaccinated.
But posts online are falsely claiming that Bill Gates is behind an effort to use inhalable mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to blanket the air and forcibly vaccinate large numbers of people without their consent.
“Bill Gates mRNA ‘Air Vaccine’ Approved for Use Against Non-Consenting Humans,” reads one false headline from the People’s Voice, a dubious website we’ve fact-checked in the past.
“The air vaccine will ‘indiscriminately’ force jab the entire planet with mRNA, delivering the toxic chemicals straight into a person’s lungs,” the post continues.
As we have explained before, the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have a good safety profile and aren’t “toxic.”
The article proceeds to weave together a few true things — including the existence of some basic research at Yale University on an mRNA nasal vaccine in mice — to falsely suggest a Bill Gates-backed conspiracy is about to begin.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation told us in an email that the claims in the article were “false.”
Other posts have highlighted the same research to suggest the possibility of forced vaccination, sometimes without invoking Bill Gates.
In reality, no mRNA versions of an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine have been approved in any country, according to our research, although some non-mRNA designs have been rolled out in places such as China. And scientists say it’s not possible to spray such a vaccine into the air and vaccinate people unwittingly.
“It is not possible to do that and achieve vaccination, and it is not what we tested in our studies,” W. Mark Saltzman, a biomedical engineer and one of the scientists leading the work at Yale, told us in an email.
The posts also sometimes cite a bioethics paper entitled “Compulsory moral bioenhancement should be covert” to argue that the conspiracy is more plausible. But the paper, which was written by a single academic, is specifically about moral bioenhancement, which the author defines as “the potential practice of influencing a person’s moral behavior by way of biological intervention upon their moral attitudes, motivations, or dispositions.”
This is a theoretical concept, as currently there is no biological way to modify a person’s moral behavior. Moreover, the article is only arguing a conditional — that if moral bioenhancement is compulsory, then it should be covertly administered. It is not directly relevant to COVID-19 vaccination.
The post “cuts up different pieces of information and pieces it together into a Frankenstein theory,” Dr. Angela K. Shen, a vaccine and public health expert at the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard David Institute of Health Economics, told us. “But it doesn’t really work that way.”
Misinterpreted Yale Study
As supposed evidence of the plot, the People’s Voice article cites an August study published in Science Translational Medicine by researchers at Yale University. “A team from Yale University developed the method for delivering the dangerous chemicals into people’s lungs,” the post incorrectly claims.
But the study, which was performed in mice, is only evidence that scientists are working on developing an mRNA nasal vaccine.
“This basic science study found that mRNA molecules delivered intranasally to the lungs of research animals can be used to effectively vaccinate against the COVID virus,” Saltzman said.
“Contrary to reports on social media,” Saltzman said, spraying the vaccine in the air to mass vaccinate non-consenting people “would not work in humans and this study did not involve humans. Humans must receive a controlled dose that is administered directly into the nose.”
Shen also noted that “when something goes airborne, it dilutes things,” making the prospect of trying to forcibly vaccinate a population by spraying a vaccine highly implausible.
Photo by stock.adobe.com
The Yale paper’s main innovation is the polymer nanoparticles used to deliver the mRNA into the lung. Alone, mRNA is very unstable, and won’t get past layers of mucus inside the body or into cells and do anything. At the same time, previous delivery systems scientists have tested have caused lung inflammation.
This design appeared to balance those concerns, at least in mice. But more testing is needed, including in humans, before the vaccine, if successful, would ever become available. Shen, who is also a retired captain in the U.S. Public Health Service, estimated it would take closer to eight to 10 years for such a vaccine to get to market.
Saltzman added that there was “no funding from Bill Gates or his foundation,” consistent with the funding sources listed in his study.
The only connection to Bill Gates we were able to find is a general interest in nasal spray vaccines, which generally are not mRNA-based. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has helped fund other research into nasal vaccines and participated in a virtual workshop about such vaccines for COVID-19 in November 2022, for example.
But as we said, the foundation called the allegations in the posts false, and as we’ll explain in more detail below, there are good public health reasons to want to invest in nasal vaccines. This interest is not evidence of a conspiracy to forcibly vaccinate anyone.
Promise of Nasal Spray Vaccines
Scientists are interested in nasal spray and other so-called mucosal vaccines primarily because by targeting the mucosal tissues where respiratory infections first take hold, they might better prevent infection than injected vaccines.
As pointed out in a summary of the November 2022 workshop on mucosal vaccines for COVID-19, even if such vaccines aren’t able to prevent infection entirely, they may still reduce viral shedding more than injected vaccines, which would reduce transmission of the virus. This, in turn, would more effectively limit surges of disease, lower the number of people who develop long COVID and reduce the risk of creating new COVID-19 variants.
Another advantage of mucosal vaccines is that they are easier to administer. This is helpful to everyone, but could be especially valuable in poorer parts of the world.
“A needleless delivery device is a better delivery method for lower and middle income countries,” Shen told us from Sierra Leone, where she is doing some work.
Since many people are afraid of needles, a needle-free vaccine is also likely to appeal to many people who would like to be vaccinated, but can’t get over their fear.
Relatively few mucosal vaccines exist, however, especially for respiratory illnesses. There is only one Food and Drug Administration-approved nasal spray vaccine. That vaccine, FluMist, uses weakened flu viruses to protect against seasonal influenza.
There are no inhalable or nasal spray COVID-19 vaccines authorized or approved in the U.S. The government, however, is putting money behind at least two designs, neither of which use mRNA — again, with the hope that these easier-to-administer vaccines would also better reduce spread of the coronavirus.
Outside the U.S., there are a few non-mRNA designs from India, China, Russia and Iran with authorizations or approvals.
China authorized the world’s first inhalable COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in September 2022. It is an aerosolized version of the company’s injectable vaccine, which uses an adenovirus — not mRNA — to deliver instructions for making the coronavirus’ spike protein. The inhalable vaccine uses an individual cup dispenser to transform the vaccine liquid into a mist that can be breathed in.
Sources
Knisely, Jane M. et al. “Mucosal vaccines for SARS-CoV-2: scientific gaps and opportunities—workshop report.” npj Vaccines. 12 Apr 2023.
Jaramillo, Catalina. “COVID-19 Vaccine-Generated Spike Protein is Safe, Contrary to Viral Claims.” FactCheck.org. 1 Jul 2021.
Saltzman, W. Mark. Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University. Emails to FactCheck.org. 10 and 13 Oct 2023.
Crutchfield, Parker. “Compulsory moral bioenhancement should be covert.” Bioethics. 29 Aug 2018.
Shen, Angela K. Senior Fellow, Leonard David Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 9 Oct 2023.
Suberi, Alexandra et al. “Polymer nanoparticles deliver mRNA to the lung for mucosal vaccination.” Science Translational Medicine. 16 Aug 2023.
“An mRNA COVID vaccine (and potentially more) with nanoparticles, no shot needed.” Press release. School of Engineering & Applied Science, Yale University. 16 Aug 2023.
Ndeupen, Sonia. “The mRNA-LNP platform’s lipid nanoparticle component used in preclinical vaccine studies is highly inflammatory.” iScience. 20 Nov 2021.
Hartwell, Brittany L. “Intranasal vaccination with lipid-conjugated immunogens promotes antigen transmucosal uptake to drive mucosal and systemic immunity.” Science Translational Medicine. 20 Jul 2022.
“Baltimore Researchers Receive $40 Million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.” Press release. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 28 Aug 2000.
Topol, Eric J. and Akiko Iwasaki. “Operation Nasal Vaccine—Lightning speed to counter COVID-19.” Science Immunology. 21 Jul 2022.
“Project NextGen Selects Initial Vaccine Candidates and Awards Over $500 Million to Advance Development of Vaccines and Therapeutics.” Press release. HHS. 13 Oct 2023.
“Project NextGen: Next Generation Medical Countermeasures.” BARDA. Accessed 13 Oct 2023.
Waltz, Emily. “China and India approve nasal COVID vaccines — are they a game changer?” Nature. 7 Sep 2022.
McCarthy, Simone and Brenda Goodman. “China approves world’s first inhaled Covid vaccine for emergency use.” CNN. 7 Sep 2022.
“World-First Inhaled COVID-19 Vaccine, Developed in Partnership Between Aerogen® and CanSinoBIO, First Public Booster Immunization in China.” Press release. Aerogen and CanSinoBIO. 14 Nov 2022.
“CanSinoBIO’s Convidecia Air Receives Approval in China.” Press release. CanSinoBio. Sep 2022.
Editor’s note: This story contains references and links to graphic images and videos.
An Instagram video seeking to disprove reports of violence in the Oct. 7 Gaza attack on Israel claimed that accounts of a mass shooting at an Israeli music festival are false.
“Two-hundred-fifty people were killed at a concert: False,” the video’s narrator said in the Oct. 10 post as words stating the same appeared on the screen.
“The only videos we have seen are people running away from the concert,” he continued. “There isn’t a single video or photo suggesting that 250 people were killed at a concert or that a mass shooting took place.”
But that’s wrong.
(Screengrab from Instagram)
This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
In a large-scale assault against Israel, Hamas militants opened fire at the Tribe of Nova Festival near the Gaza-Israel border on Oct. 7. About 3,500 people attended the two-day trance music festival, billed as an event celebrating “friends, love and infinite freedom.” People had been dancing through the night when the rockets began firing right before dawn.
Israeli rescue service Zaka said 260 bodies were recovered at the festival site. Some Israelis were taken hostage. Many festival attendees hid in nearby orchards and bushes waiting to get rescued, and survivors said Hamas militants were hunting them down for hours as they tried to flee.
Heads of state also confirmed the attack and deaths. The leaders of France, Germany, Itay, the United Kingdom and the U.S. issued an Oct. 9 statement condemning the slaughter of “over 200 young people enjoying a music festival.” In an Oct. 10 speech, President Joe Biden condemned the massacre of young people attending the festival “to celebrate peace.”
And contrary to the video’s claims, there are numerous images and videos showing the shootings at the festival grounds.
The Instagram video claimed that the only videos from the concert show people running away. As part of its evidence, it shows a clip of people running in the desert. But in a fuller video clip from that moment gunshots can be heard in the background.
Dash cam video, media and concertgoers also captured videos showing lifeless bodies by a van, men shooting people around a car, and a Hamas fighter shooting at a car escaping from the festival grounds.
Another video shows people running across a field while gunshots are being fired.
CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward reported that the government released a photo of scores of body bags in a tent, their identities yet to be determined.
The Instagram video also sought to discount two other reports about the conflict that have captured attention — that 40 babies had been beheaded and that people had been raped.
The report about babies being beheaded originated with a reporter who said she heard the allegations from Israeli soldiers. Israeli Defense Forces has not confirmed this report, nor have U.S. officials. Hamas has denied it. There have been a number of state reports, however, about violence against babies and children. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office shared Oct. 12 photos of babies it said were “murdered and burned” by Hamas.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during an Oct. 12 press conference that he had viewed gruesome war images from Israel and they included documentation of “an infant riddled with bullets.”
When asked about the authenticity of the images of dead children shared by Netanyahu, U.S. White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby said Oct. 12, “I don’t think we’re in the business of having to validate or approve those kinds of images. They’re from the prime minister of Israel, and we have no reason to doubt their authenticity.”
Regarding whether people were raped during the attack, Netanyahu on Oct. 11 described atrocities committed by Hamas and said men and women were “burned alive” and young women were “raped and slaughtered.” An Israeli official also said women were raped. Biden referenced rape as well in his comments.
There is ample evidence, including numerous videos and photos, and official reports substantiating that 260 people were killed at an Israeli music festival during the Hamas attack Oct. 7. We rate the claim that it did not happen Pants on Fire.
PolitiFact reporter Sara Swann contributed to this report.
The video showed a disturbing scene. It started with a view of cars on a roundabout, surrounding buildings tinged in red. Flares and fireworks go off, shrouding the air with smoke. Social media users claimed this is what’s happening in Gaza now during the Israel-Hamas war.
“The gate of HE!L has opened in G A Z A,” read the caption of an Oct. 9 Facebook video, which is no longer available. It was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The same video was used in severalXposts, which all contained this caption: “If Russia did this in Kiev it would be all over the news and everyone would be screaming ‘genocide’, but it’s happening in Gaza and no one cares about the civilian casualties.”
Out-of-context videos have been flooding social media since this war began, and this video is no different.
The X posts’ video featured the handle of TikTok user @ramiguerfi41. The video is no longer on the user’s account, but other TikTok users reposted the video Oct. 2, days before Hamas began attacking Israel on Oct. 7.
Using satellite imagery, Reuters reported that this video was taken in Algiers, Algeria, matching the roundabout to Place Al Mokrani.
Although the original video’s context is unclear, soccer fans in Algiers have been known to use red flares and fireworks in celebration.
The video does not show Gaza after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. We rate that claim False.
The Qatari government has tried to de-escalate the the Israel-Hamas war by trying to negotiate prisoner swaps, according to news reports.
But social media claims say Qatar’s emir has issued a threat with global consequences if Israel doesn’t stop bombing Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’ terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
A caption on an Oct. 11 Facebook post read, “The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has threatened that if the bombing of Gaza does not stop, he will cut off the supply of gas to the world.”
The Facebook post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
Qatar is the third-largest exporter of natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and has been a key supplier in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
We could find no credible news reports that al-Thani or any Qatari government official has threatened to cut off gas supplies in searches of Google and the Nexis database. Nor could we find any such statements on a Qatar government communications office website or the state-run Qatar News Agency’s website.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Qatar Oct. 13 to meet with al-Thani and Qatar’s prime minister. There was no mention of gas supplies in a news conference from Qatar or in news coverage of the visit.
Qatar-based online news site Doha News on Oct. 12 reported that the claim surfaced on X, formerly Twitter, on an account called “@qattar_affairs,” which has since been suspended. We found another post on X (archived) with more than 290,000 views making the claim and citing that same post from @qattar_affairs in a reply as evidence.
Marc Owen Jones, a Middle East studies professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar, described @qattar_affairs as a “fake news account” and “not a credible source.” The account’s previous incarnation, @Qatar_Affairs, was also suspended, Jones wrote on X.
A #Disinfo account are using the bombing of Gaza to spread false info. One of these is a tweet about #Qatar threatening to cut off gas to the world if bombing of #Gaza doesn’t stop. This story started on X, and so far has 10 million impressions, over 95k likes, & over 23k RTs pic.twitter.com/doMlgQMVF0
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy questioned why the United States doesn’t have an “Iron Dome” defense system like the one that is defending Israel against rockets fired from Gaza.
“We don’t have an Iron Dome in this country, yet, we’re vulnerable to nuclear missile attacks any given day,” Ramaswamy, a businessman, said on Tucker Carlson’s Oct. 9 show on X. “And we’re marching closer into nuclear conflict in multiple parts of the world, most notably with Russia.”
Carlson later replied, “How could you pay for a much-needed defense system in another country but not in your own country? I don’t understand that. How can you pretend to be a leader in your country if you’re doing something like that? That seems so immoral to me.”
Their conversation was premised on some misunderstandings about the U.S. missile defense strategy, but it touched on a key question of the moment: Why doesn’t the U.S. have Iron Dome technology as Israel does?
The U.S. military is investing in this technology, just not in the way you might picture it.
For the U.S., an Iron Dome’s usefulness is limited because the system is designed to combat threats such as those faced by Israel, a small nation hemmed in by enemies. The United States is much larger and doesn’t have the geopolitical concern that its direct neighbors will fire rockets on Americans.
An Iron Dome could not be counted on to counter long-range missiles with a nuclear warhead. The U.S. military has sought, with mixed success, to establish missile defenses against nuclear threats from rogue states and superpowers such as Russia or China.
What is the Iron Dome, and how has the U.S. aided its development?
The Iron Dome is Israel’s air defense missile system. It was developed in 2011 by Israeli companies, with significant U.S. financial investment. It is designed to shoot down incoming projectiles, such as rockets and artillery; it is not used to attack or retaliate.
This is how it works: Radar detects incoming rockets and sends information about projected paths to the command and control center. This component determines the threat level and whether the rockets are likely to strike inhabited areas. If the system concludes that there is a threat, an interceptor fires missiles from the ground to destroy the rockets in the air. Israel’s Iron Dome consists of multiple batteries and interceptors that can destroy hundreds of projectiles at once.
The U.S. has spent millions of dollars to help Israel deploy interceptors for the dome, experts said, and U.S. defense contractors such as General Dynamics Corp. and Raytheon Technologies Corp. have been deeply involved in the system’s manufacturing and development, along with Israeli industry. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, more than half of the system’s components are manufactured in the U.S.
The system is expensive to operate, especially amid hostilities. In 2023, the U.S. is slated to spend close to $80 million to acquire Iron Dome interceptors for Israel, and an equivalent amount was requested for the same purpose in 2024, said Jaganath Sankaran, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and a trained mechanical engineer.
A battery of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system in August 2022. (AP)
How useful would Iron Dome be for defending the United States?
The U.S. has deployed an Iron Dome system, though for limited purposes.
In 2019, the U.S. Army bought two Iron Dome system batteries from Israel; they were delivered in 2020 and 2021. The Army intended to use them as an interim defense against cruise missiles as the service builds what it calls its “Indirect Fire Protection Capability” system — a mobile, ground-based weapons system designed to defeat cruise missiles, unmanned aircraft systems, rockets, artillery and mortars.
One of the batteries was sent in 2021 to Guam, a U.S. territory, to test, train and refine deployment capabilities, Defense News reported in March 2022. The other is at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a training and mobilization center for all services, in Washington state.
In August 2023, the U.S. Marine Corps said it would acquire three more batteries and nearly 2,000 interceptor missiles from Israel, although the unfolding war between Israel and Hamas could change that.
Another potential American use of dome technology could be to protect overseas U.S. forces that are facing artillery rockets, said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a Washington, D.C.,-based research group.
In general, though, the Iron Dome solves a problem that the U.S. does not have.
“The geography of Israel — its smaller area and close proximity of (militant groups) Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and southern Lebanon — makes the Iron Dome sensible for Israel,” Sankaran said. “Mexico and Canada are not going to shoot at us, so why do we need it in the continental U.S.? And even if such a strike happened hypothetically, Iron Dome would not defend a country as large as the United States.”
How significant is the threat to the U.S. from longer-range missiles?
Military analysts said attacks from intermediate-range nuclear missiles or ICBMs are a significant concern for the U.S. But the experts added that an Iron Dome wouldn’t help there.
Iron Dome “is not designed for nor capable of intercepting nuclear warheads launched from intercontinental ranges,” said retired U.S. Air Force Col. Dana Struckman, a Naval War College professor who said he spoke for himself and not the college or the military.
The U.S. has worked on missile defense systems for decades with mixed success, experts said. The U.S. has the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (or GMD) system, which is designed to intercept ICBMs from North Korea. Its interceptors are in Alaska and California. It’s had some success in testing, said James Wells, a University of Michigan physicist, and there are plans to improve it.
Overall, though, U.S. missile defense capabilities are “modest,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
“Defending the U.S. homeland from very long range ballistic missiles is very hard technologically,” said Brendan Green, a University of Cincinnati professor who has studied nuclear issues. “Current systems would attempt to intercept these missiles in outer space with conventional weapons. This is a very tough engineering problem, but even more importantly, it is a tough physics problem to discriminate warheads from decoys.”
Alternatively, missile defense systems could pursue long-range missiles during the earlier “boost” phase when they are still in the atmosphere. “This is a much easier physics problem, but a more difficult intelligence problem, because your interceptors have to be very close to the missile and ready to fire very quickly,” Green said.
Meanwhile, “theater missile defense” — defending allies, military bases or high-value systems such as aircraft carriers by intercepting missiles in the atmosphere — has a better chance at success, Green said. But they can still be defeated by sending so many missiles that the defense system can’t defend against them all, he said.
The technical challenge of defending against ICBMs has led the U.S. to focus more on mutually assured destruction as a deterrent than on missile defense, experts said. The idea is to make it “suicidal” for China, Russia or North Korea to attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons, Sankaran said.
