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Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke May 20, 2021

No, Black Lives Matter didn’t say it stands with ‘Hamas terrorists’

If Your Time is short

  • Black Lives Matter tweeted support for Palestinians in the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis in Israel and Gaza. 
     
  • Fox News reported that the group said it supported "Hamas terrorists," and then later changed the headline with an editor’s note at the bottom of the story.
 

On May 19, Fox News published a story on its website with this headline: "Black Lives Matter says it stands with Hamas terrorists in Israeli conflict."

By the end of the day, though, the headline had changed to say that "Black Lives Matter ‘stands in solidarity’ with Palestinians, vows to fight for ‘Palestinian liberation.’"

But not before people took screenshots of the original headline and started to share it on social media. 

These posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Black Lives Matter did not say that it supports Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza. 

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On May 17, the group’s verified Twitter account tweeted: "Black Lives Matter stands in solidarity with Palestinians. We are a movement committed to ending settler colonialism in all forms and will continue to advocate for Palestinian liberation. (always have. And always will be)." 

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In the May 19 edition of the CNN newsletter Reliable Sources, media reporter Oliver Darcy wrote that "Fox stealth-edited the significant error out of its piece, and only attached a weak editor’s note to the article after I reached out for comment on why it hadn’t done so already." 

The editor’s note at the bottom of the story says that "this report’s headline was updated to more closely reflect the Black Lives Matter tweet." 

We rate claims that the group said it stands with "Hamas terrorists" False.

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No, Black Lives Matter didn’t say it stands with ‘Hamas terrorists’

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