Guardian headline about LGBTQ pride parade in Gaza is fake

An image shared online appears to show a screenshot of an opinion article in which a British columnist claims Palestinians in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip will one day host the world's largest LGBTQ pride parade. But the supposed headline in The Guardian is fabricated, the newspaper told AFP.

"Diversity and inclusion is in the heart of all Palestinians. Gaza will one day host the world's largest Pride parade," says what appears to be an article from Owen Jones dated June 2, 2024.

Posts sharing the purported screenshot spread across platforms, including X and Facebook, as the war between Israel and Hamas stretched into June, which many countries celebrate as LGBTQ pride month.

But no such article appears on the Guardian's website, where Jones's picture is inverted compared to the posts shared online (archived here).

"The story is fake," the Guardian's press office told AFP in a June 6 statement.

"The screenshot shared is not and has never been an article or headline published by the Guardian."

Jones also addressed the fictional headline on X (archived here).

"Half the bile I get on this website is from right-wing clowns faking Guardian headlines," he wrote June 4.

The columnist's only pieces published by the Guardian in June have concerned Britain's upcoming general election.

AFP contacted Jones for additional comment, but no response was forthcoming.

AFP has previously debunked other fake Guardian articles, including here.