Amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, a ‘crisis actor’ from Gaza has become a viral meme on social media for his videos featuring him in various roles ranging from a singer, a radiologist, an air strike victim, a media person to whatnot. The video content creator Saleh Aljafarawi has earned the moniker “Mr FAFO” online after a video of him rejoicing over Hamas airstrikes and later crying over Israeli retaliation went viral online.
Saleh Aljafarawi claims to be a Palestinian national and a resident of Gaza. Infamous as “Mr FAFO”, the 25-year-old “Pallywood” actor is the newly created social media portmanteau combining Palestine and Hollywood to make Pallywood, often makes videos to manipulate public sentiments and garner sympathy for Palestine and Hamas. The Hamas actor is regularly peddling victimhood for Gaza to turn the narrative in favour of Palestine and justify Hamas’s onslaught against Israel.
On X (formerly Twitter), many social media users highlighted Saleh Aljafarawi alias Mr FAFO’s ‘unparalleled’ acting skills. The Palestinian YouTuber has become a war meme.
In one such X post by “King of Israel”, Mr FAFO is seen posing in an army uniform and singing a song while a Palestinian and Hamas flag is seen in the background.
The video was posted by Aljafarawi in July this year on Instagram who claims to be a singer on YouTube channel. Mr FAFO’s singing talent also caught the attention of social media users as one Eli David posted, “who was a radiologist earlier today, is now a singer.”
The second image is the popular “F%$k around, find out” meme which got Aljafarawi the name “Mr FAFO”. In the third image, he is seen posing with a victory sign near the debris following an airstrike. In the last picture, FAFO is posing as a radiologist.
An X user “updated” that Mr FAFO is “alive and well, and now he is a radiologist.”
https://twitter.com/DrEliDavid/status/1719438404281049252?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw AnotAnother X user wrote, “Guess who’s back Mr. FAFO Faster than you thought in his brand new role. lecko mio.”
In another video, Saleh Aljafarawi alias Mr FAFO is seen posing as a media person doing ‘ground reporting’ wearing a helmet with ‘press’ written on it.
“Did you know that #MrFAFO is also a reporter extraordinaire? #Pallywood. Also, someone needs to update the Hamas Health Ministry, that it’s 7,998 deaths because they counted #MrFAFO twice,” an X user posted.
Outlining Saleh Aljafarawi’s ‘acting skills’, author Oli London posted, “Hamas Crisis actor spotted with his Film Crew in Gaza preparing for his next role. The actor, who has appeared in dozens of staged propaganda videos for the terror group has taken on various roles. • Radiologist • Singer • First Responder • Air Strike Victim • Hospital Patient • Gas attack victim • Father of airstrike victims.”
In another X post, Oli London shared a video of the Palestinian ‘crisis actor’ laughing and wrote, “Hamas Crisis Actor, who has been filming himself holding random babies today claiming they are his own children injured by air strikes, is all smiles as he laughs and jokes in an Instagram story, uploaded just 5 hours ago. His main Instagram account was suspended by META tonight but he has begun posting on his backup account, which has 32,000 followers.”
It is worth noting that Aljafarawi’s Instagram page was suspended recently, however, the page seems to have been restored.
Mr FAFO reminds one of the “ghost of Kyiv” that gained popularity last year amidst the Ukraine-Russia war. The alleged flying hero was accredited with shooting down 40 Russian warplanes, however, it later turned out that the MiG-29 pilot aka “ghost of Kyiv” was not a real person but a mythical legend created by the Ukrainians and abetted by the Ukrainian Businessman Petro Poroshenko, who had posted a masked image of the “ghost of Kyiv” in February last year, hailing his six ‘imaginary’ victories over Russian pilots.
Notably, certain claims associated with some of Mr FAFO’s videos have turned out to be misleading as well. For instance, the assertion that Saleh Aljafarawi recently became a father was misleading as in his original Instagram post, the ‘crisis actor’ did not make any such claim. Moreover, a video of an intubated patient on a hospital bed went viral online with a claim that it was Saleh Aljafarawi aka Mr FAFO posing as an airstrike victim. Although the striking similarity in looks of the person in the video confused many, he was not Aljafarawi but a Palestinian refugee at Nur Shams camp in the West Bank.
Amidst Saleh Aljafarawi alias Mr FAFO’s desperate manipulations and misleading videos and social media claims, it is worth noting that Hamas has been employing various propaganda tactics to garner sympathy and project Israel as an oppressor. One such shameful gimmick by Hamas was when it claimed that over 500 died in the Gaza Hospital, however, officials from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were quick to point out that this was not an Israeli airstrike but rather a misfired rocket from within Gaza. Apparently, in addition to the war against Hamas, Houthis and Hezbollah, Israel has to fight the mis/disinformation war as well.
While Hamas and its propagandists are leaving no stone unturned to attract global sympathy and support against Israel, claiming to be victims of the Jewish nation’s offensive, senior Hamas terrorist official Ghazi Hamad not only justified the horrifying terror attack in Israel on October 7 killing 1,400 civilians including children and the elderly and raping women but also announced to repeat it until Israel’s annihilation.