The first casualty of war is truth, a maxim the Palestinian Information Center is learning for itself in the hardscrabble world of social media communications.

In the wake of the Hamas-instigated “March of the Return” Gaza riots that tore across the Israeli border last week, the center was keen to publicize what it claimed was a publicity coup. In a Facebook post, it told its 500,000 followers that a French doctor had arrived in the Gaza Strip to perform her work and treat ‘wounded Palestinian protesters.’

See the evidence below:

Trouble is, the shot is of actress Katherine Heigl who played a doctor on TV in the hit show Grey’s Anatomy from 2005-2010.

The clumsy ruse did not last long and was quickly spotted on Twitter:

Good thing it’s not called the “Palestinian Fact-Checking Center” pic.twitter.com/PFRr0DG1s9 — Ari Krauss (@AriKrauss) April 4, 2018

Very quickly the Palestinian Information Service backed away from its initial claim, and published the following grovelling apology:

There is no word yet if the doctors seen below will be in the next group of arrivals expected by the Palestinian Information Center in the troubled Gaza Strip.