School indoctrination was the sole cause of October 7 attacks?

checkthis · automated fact-check · How we check

Half the storyTrick: Blames one cause

Checked 15 Oct 2026

The footage is from a 2016 documentary produced by an Israeli research group, not a recent recording. While the documentary shows children making violent statements, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) disputed the film at the time, stating it misrepresented non-UN schools as UNRWA facilities and used slanted translations. The Reel leaves out the footage's age and this dispute to claim school indoctrination is the sole cause of the October 7 attacks.

It leaves out something that changes it. Reel by @basedinmalibu

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The Reel we checked

@basedinmalibu

Hey @msrachelforlittles this is what Palestinian children are taught… anything you want to say?

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The trick: Blames one cause

It pins a complex outcome on one cause (known as oversimplified cause).

"So no, October 7th didn't happen because Palestinians were living in an open air prison. It happened because they were being taught from a young age to hate the Jewish people and to kill the Jewish people. It has…"

The Reel presents 8-year-old disputed footage as absolute, current proof of a single cause for a complex conflict.

How this trick works and how to answer it →

What we checked

✓

The video shows Palestinian school children describing what they are taught in school.Shown by the video itself (our read of the footage).

Palestinian children are taught in schools at a young age that Jewish people are evil.No reliable source found for this yet.

The October 7 attack occurred solely because Palestinians were taught from a young age to hate and kill Jewish people, not due to living conditions.No reliable source found for this yet.

What the Reel doesn't tell you

The footage used in the Reel comes from a documentary released in 2016, years before the October 7 attacks.
UNRWA formally contested the documentary, stating the filmmaker conflated UN-run schools with non-UN facilities and used slanted translations.

How it plays you

It wants you to think: "Palestinians are universally indoctrinated into violence, so geopolitical context or living conditions play no role in the conflict."

Statements from individual children in a disputed documentary do not prove what is taught across an entire educational system, nor do they eliminate documented political and territorial causes of historical events.

Generalisation from individual: "That is what Palestinian children are taught at school at a very young age". It takes the statements of a few children in compiled video clips and presents them as the universal curriculum for all Palestinian youth.
Causal oversimplification: "It has nothing to do with land. It has everything to do with anti-Semitism and hatred.". It erases decades of geopolitical grievances and living conditions to declare a complex military attack the result of a single psychological factor.
False equivalence: "Could you imagine if this was in America and it was white children saying that black people are evil". It frames an international territorial and political conflict as identical to domestic racial dynamics in the United States.

Short version

🧩 HALF THE STORY 👉 The footage is from a 2016 documentary produced by an Israeli research group, not a recent recording. 👉 While the documentary shows children making violent statements, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) disputed the film at the time, stating it misrepresented non-UN schools as UNRWA facilities and used slanted translations. 👉 The Reel leaves out the footage's age and this dispute to claim school indoctrination is the sole cause of the October 7 attacks. 🎭 Trick: Blames one cause 🔎 Full check: send this Reel to @checkthis.chat

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