Image of Athens mayor wearing Palestinian flag shirt is altered

An altered photograph of Athens mayor Haris Doukas from Greece’s 2023 election campaign was shared on social media on October 7, 2024, the day marking one year since Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel sparked a wider regional conflict. The doctored image shows the politician wearing a shirt with the colours of the Palestinian flag. But the claim is false: several Greek media organisations published the original photo that shows Doukas wearing a white shirt during the 2023 campaign. The mayor’s office also confirmed to AFP that the image was altered.

“According to unconfirmed reports, comrade Haris Doukas has nominated himself as the new leader of HAMAS,” reads a July 31  Facebook post, shared dozens of times.

The post includes a photograph of the former energy professor and current Athens mayor, Haris Doukas, wearing a shirt in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

This same image was shared again in October 2024 on Facebook in a collage showing several Greek politicians wearing the black-and-white keffiyeh scarf, symbolising the Palestinian struggle against Israel (archived here).

“Islamo-leftism”, the new narrative of the left in Greece and Europe”, reads the post’s caption in Greek.

While AFP confirmed the other images of Greek politicians included in the collage are authentic, the image of Doukas was doctored and shared outside of its original context.

The original image dates to Doukas’ 2023 campaign for the Athens mayoral office, his press office confirmed to AFP.

Moreover, Greek media organisations widely published the original photo of the politician wearing a plain white shirt — not red, green, black, and white — during the 2023 election.

The image was re-shared in Facebook posts published on October 7, 2024, a year after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also kidnapped 251 people, both Israeli and foreign, 97 of whom are still being held in Gaza, 34 of whom have died, according to the Israeli army.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 43,390 people, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Ministry of Health. The United Nations said that these figures are reliable.

A photo of 2023

Using a reverse image search, AFP Fact Check found a photo similar to the one shared in the false posts of Haris Doukas, but the politician is wearing a white button-down shirt, not a shirt in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

Several Greek media outlets published the photo on August 3, 2023 – the same day Doukas officially announced his candidacy for the mayor of Athens (archived here, here and here).

Several visual clues confirm the photo published by Greek media outlets is the same as the altered image shared on social media.

The same man wearing a backpack is visible to the left of Doukas, and both images have the same background, including a distinct tree over the politician’s left shoulder and a roof hanging over the sidewalk.

But the image shared in the false posts was altered to make it appear that the Greek politician was wearing a pro-Palestinian shirt.

Image ‘faked’

AFP Fact Check contacted the mayor’s press team, confirming the photos were taken during the 2023 election campaign.

“The photo shared on social networks was faked and does not correspond to reality,” Doukas’ office told AFP.

The Greek press also published other images of Doukas from the same day, showing him wearing the same white shirt.

In another photo published by Greek media on August 18, 2023, Doukas is smiling into the camera in the same place visible in the image of him walking down a sidewalk (archived here).

Screenshot of images published by Greek media with boxes added for emphasis, taken on October 21, 2024

AFP searched for the photographer who had taken the original photograph but was unable to find them.

No official position

Ηaris Doukas was elected mayor of Athens in the second round of municipal elections on October 15, 2023.

Since then, he has taken no official position on the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Doukas did come under fire on social media at the 2024 New Year’s Eve party when he addressed the crowd alongside a young girl, who many social media users falsely claimed was a Palestinian girl but is the daughter of two Greek celebrities, also on stage that evening (archived here).

The politician was also criticised for allowing Palestinian flags to fly in the crowd during the celebration.

“It is a public space with free access. What was I supposed to do…is there any sane person who would turn this celebration into a battlefield? But I think those making noise were few and far between”, Doukas told Greek outlet Mega during a televised interview after the incident (archived here).

Other images authentic

However, the other photos featured in the Facebook post collage showing Greek political figures, including several wearing the keffiyeh scarf, are real.

The general secretary for Greece’s communist party (KKE), Dimitris Koutsoumbas, is pictured top left along with the former president of Greece’s main opposition Syriza party, a representative for the New Left party, and the secretary for the left-wing party, MeRA 25.

AFP Fact Check found the original photos using a reverse image search.

Koutsoumbas — who often appears with a keffiyeh scarf — has denounced the conflict in the Gaza Strip and the possibility of a broader conflict in the region (archived here).

Stefanos Kasselakis of the Syriza party is pictured during a visit to Bethlehem in May 2024, where he called on the Greek government to recognise a Palestinian state (archived here).

Effie Achtsioglou of the New Left party and Yanis Varoufakis, the head of MeRA 25, are often pictured wearing the black-and-white scarf (archived here).

AFP has verified other claims relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict here.