Video of Palestinian flag atop Egyptian pyramid is manipulated

A video spreading online purports to show someone waving Palestinian and Egyptian flags atop the Great Pyramid of Giza, where climbing is forbidden, amid Israel's war with Hamas. But the clip is altered; the social media user who first posted it shared nearly identical footage in 2019 that shows no one on the ancient structure.

"From the top of the Pyramid of Giza!" says an April 20, 2024 post sharing a Palestinian flag emoji on X.

"ICONIC," another post sharing the clip says. "Palestinian supporter in the cradle of the Middle East - on top the Pyramid of Giza, Egypt."

Similar posts from users such as Sulaiman Ahmed, who has monetized misinformation about the conflict in the Gaza Strip, rocketed across X and other platforms.

The video comes more than six months after Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack that killed around 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's military offensive in response has killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza -- mostly women and children -- according to the Palestinian territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Some Egyptians have protested the war, but the clip circulating online is not authentic.

"It is not a real footage and it is prohibited to climb the pyramid, according to the antiquities protection law," said Ashraf Mohi, director general of the Giza Plateau archaeological site, in an April 23, 2024 statement to AFP.

Egyptian authorities have previously arrested -- and, in at least one case, banned from the country -- people who have scaled the pyramids.

Reverse image searches revealed a social media user named Mostafa Eldiasty posted the video to TikTok on April 13 (archived here). It received more than 1.1 million views.

The searches also surfaced another video Eldiasty posted in 2019 (archived here and here). While the clip is not exactly the same, it shows the pyramid from a nearly identical aerial vantage point -- and there is no one on top of the structure.

Eldiasty, who uses the handle "100.pixels," describes himself on Instagram and elsewhere as a "creative director" and a "VFX" and "3D artist" (archived here and here). VFX is an abbreviation for visual effects created with computers.

His social media pages are full of videos featuring drone shots of the pyramids of Giza, including some that are clearly altered.

AFP contacted Eldiasty for comment, but no response was forthcoming.

AFP previously debunked an image that was altered to show the pyramid lit up in the colors of the Palestinian flag.

April 25, 2024 The headline and first paragraph of this article were corrected to reflect that the altered video shows one Palestinian flag and one Egyptian flag