Pro-Hamas influencer Saleh al-Jafarawi was killed in clan fighting less than 72 hours after the Israeli military began withdrawing from Gaza, Palestinian media outlets report.
“Media outlets in Gaza report that Saleh al-Jafarawi, a well-known influencer in Gaza, has been killed during armed clashes between Hamas and militias in Gaza City,” The Times of Israel reported Saturday evening. “Footage circulating online shows his body.”
Al-Jafarawi gained notoriety in the early hours of October 7, 2023, as Hamas began firing thousands of rockets and its terrorist forces unleashed a massacre in southern Israel. He posted a video of himself rejoicing over the Hamas terror attack. But his tone soon changed when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began a ground operation to rescue the hostages and destroy Hamas’s terrorist capabilities. This earned him the nickname “Mr. FAFO.”
He won a huge following on social media by posting content falsely accusing Israel of atrocities in Gaza. To substantiate his fake claims, he even appeared as a victim of an Israeli strike in one of his videos. A versatile actor, he could be seen in his own videos as a gun-waving Hamas terrorist or a journalist wearing a blue helmet and a vest marked “press.”
Al-Jafarawi had millions of followers on social media, including three million on Instagram. Last month, IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Lt. Colonel Avichay Adraee, blasted al-Jafarawi on X for operating as a propaganda tool for terrorists. Adraee, in his post, called al-Jafarawi an “actor, hypocrite, liar” who was “profiting off the tragedies of Gaza’s residents.”
The Israel Hayom newspaper reported:
Gazan social media activist Saleh al-Jafarawi has been missing since this morning, according to Palestinian sources. Reports said contact with him was lost and he has not been answering his phone.Rumors circulating on social media claim that al-Jafarawi was shot dead by members of the Dughmosh clan, though this has not been verified. Al-Jaafrawi was one of the most prominent figures associated with Hamas propaganda since the start of the war in Gaza. In the past, there were also false rumors about his death.During the war, al-Jaafrawi, who was in his twenties, became known by his nickname “Mr. FAFO”. He appeared in countless social media videos, playing a range of roles: a Hamas terrorist, a field journalist, a snooker player, the father of an injured child, a patient at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, a displaced resident in Khan Younis, and more.
The news of al-Jafarawi’s killing comes as a turf war unfolds in Gaza after the Israeli military withdrawal from most of the residential areas. Palestinian clans and rival terrorist groups are waging bloody battles to wrest control of parts of Gaza.
“At least 27 people have been killed in clashes between Hamas and a Gaza City clan since the end of major Israeli operations in the territory,” the BBC reported Saturday. “Residents describe scenes of panic as dozens of families fled their homes under heavy gunfire, many of them displaced multiple times during the war, our Gaza correspondent reports.”
It is ironic that al-Jafarawi, who made a name by smearing the IDF, was killed in Palestinian infighting hours after the Israeli withdrawal.
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