No, Owen Jones didn’t write about a Pride parade in Gaza in The Guardian

An image that appears to a Guardian article by gay columnist Owen Jones about future hopes for a record-breaking LGBTQ+ Pride parade in Gaza, is a fake.

“Diversity and inclusion is in the heart of all Palestinians. Gaza will one day host the world’s largest Pride parade,” the headline reads on an image created to look like a screenshot from The Guardian on 2 June, with Jones’s headshot next to it.

The false image was shared widely on social media, including on Facebook and X/Twitter, as Pride month began and the Hamas-Israel conflict stretched into its eighth month.

The Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October led to the deaths of more than 1,200 people and triggered the war in Gaza, which has already cost more than 35,000 Palestinian lives.

“The story is fake,” the newspaper’s press office told AFP Fact Check on Thursday (6 June). “The screenshot shared is not and has never been an article or headline published by The Guardian.”

Left-wing firebrand Jones, who has been outspoken in his calls for a ceasefire, took to X/Twitter, to slam the fake.

“Half the bile I get on this website is from right-wing clowns faking Guardian headlines and whipping their braindead knuckle-dragger followers into a frenzy over it,” he wrote.

This is not the first time a false headline has been attributed to Jones.

In October, another headline alongside his byline and headshot read: Without Israeli oppression, Gaza can become a LGBTQIA2S+ Месса.” The Guardian told Reuters Fact Check that the screenshot was fabricated and stated in an email that it “has never been a published Guardian headline or story”.

Jones also confirmed the headline and image was “definitely faked”.