Fact Check: Forbes cover featuring former Hamas chief Khaled Mashal is fake
The ‘magazine cover’ featuring Khaled Mashal is not an issue of the Forbes magazine.
By Md Mahfooz Alam Published on 11 Nov 2023 9:11 AM GMT
Screengrab of the post making the false claim. (Source: X/@RozRothstein)
Hyderabad: A Forbes magazine cover purportedly featuring former Hamas chief Khaled Mashal is being widely circulated on social media.
The magazine cover has an imprint of being published on October 7, 2023, from Gaza. The text on the cover reads, “Khaled Mashal $5,000,000,000 BILLIONAIRE: Made his fortune defrauding his people and the generosity of the world. A licensed thief who leaves his people hungry for bread and water. Calls himself a ‘liberator’ but in fact, he is the one who steals their Freedom and a better future. (sic)”
An X premium user shared the image of the cover with the caption, “Khaled Mashal, a Hamas leader currently residing in a luxury hotel in Qatar, thrives on exploiting his own people and manipulating global sympathy. Claiming to be a ‘liberator,’ he's nothing but a thief, robbing the civilians in Gaza of their freedom and a brighter future. (sic)”
Pro-Israeli verified accounts on Instagram and Facebook also shared the cover. Click here and here to view the posts.
Fact Check
NewsMeter verified that the ‘magazine cover’ featuring Khaled Mashal is not an issue of the Forbes magazine.
We started our investigation by checking whether a Forbes edition from Gaza exists but did not find it on the magazine’s website. We also did not find Khaled Mashal featured in October’s edition of Israel Forbes.
On the Forbes magazine store, we checked all editions published since February 28, 2018, but none featured former Hamas chief Khaled Mashal. The latest October/November 2023 edition featured an image of Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, titled “ZUCK GROWS UP.”
Finally, to find the origin of the fake cover, we performed a reverse image search and found it posted on October 3 by the X account managed by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The account added a disclaimer in the comments that the “magazine cover above is satire and illustrative.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel also posted the fake cover on October 4 on LinkedIn with the same disclaimer.
Hence, we conclude that the viral Forbes magazine cover featuring Khaled Mashal is fake.
