Temple Mount tourists falsely depicted as "settlers" who stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in an article on the Palestinian Information Center website. Photo: Screenshot.

JNS.org – An innocent photo of a group of young Canadians and Americans visiting the Temple Mount was used in a false accusatory article on a Palestinian website, indicating that the visitors had stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Geoffrey Zalter, 23, came to Israel on a MASA teaching fellows program (a joint project of the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency that brings young Jews to Israel) to teach English for a year. He went to the Temple Mount last week and was photographed there with a group of his friends from the program by several Palestinians.

On Jan. 18, the picture appeared on the “Palestinian Information Center” website alongside an article containing a slew of false information, including that a group of Jews had stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque and tried to fly a drone over it twice.

“Palestinian men and women were praising Allah (directed at us, with the intent to make us feel uncomfortable), yelling at us and taking pictures,” Zalter wrote on Facebook regarding the Temple Mount visit.

“I was in complete shock from the behavior of the people on the Temple Mount and from the false report,” Zalter told Israel Hayom. “I had heard about false reports against Israel and Jewish people in the Palestinian media before, and now I see they really exist.”