A picture circulated on social media claimed that a young man was an Israeli nuclear scientist killed in the armed attack on February 16 in Kiryat Malachi, southern Israel. However, this young man is not a nuclear scientist as claimed in the posts; he is a student at a Jewish religious institute from the Modiin Illit settlement in the occupied West Bank, and he was indeed killed in the attack.
The Israeli police issued a court order prohibiting the publication of details about the investigation into the attack. Palestinian social media and Israeli media only shared pictures and the name of the attacker, who is a 40-year-old from the Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem.
Regarding the circulated photo, it does not depict a nuclear scientist who died in the attack. A search for the image on search engines revealed that it is published by Israeli and Western media as a picture of a student at a religious institute who did indeed perish in the attack. Several Israeli media outlets reported the news, including The Times of Israel, Yedioth Ahronoth, i24 News, and The Australian Jewish News.
Kiryat Malachi is located about 25 kilometers north of the Gaza Strip, where the war between Israel and Hamas has been ongoing for more than four months.
