Palestinian man's selfie while 'running away from the Israeli military' isn't quite what it seems

Image features members of the band DAM - who are apparently enjoying the online reaction their now viral photo has received

There's more to this image of a man 'taking a selfie while fleeing the Israeli military' than meets the eye (Twitter/DAM)

As far as band promotions go, taking a selfie while “being chased by the Israeli Defence Force” has got to be right up there with the most daring – and controversial.

The image, posted to Twitter by the Palestinian hip hop trio DAM, has exploded across social media, with the official version receiving more than 15,000 retweets in less than 24 hours.

Unfortunately, part of the reason for that seems to be that people genuinely believe it shows a man with the audacity to grab a quick selfie while fleeing from armed police.

The group’s website describes DAM – or Da Arabian MCs – as “the first Palestinian hip hop crew and among the first to rap in Arabic, [who] began working together in the late 1990s”.

And to the credit of a number of Twitter users, many have pointed out that the selfie actually appears to simply feature band members Suhell Nafar, Tamer Nafar and Mahmoud Jreri – with two of them in “bad costumes”.

There’s certainly a pretty striking resemblance between the two “soldiers” and Shuhell and Mahmoud – and a spokesperson for the band has reportedly confirmed that the photo was staged. The DAM associate told Buzzfeed News they did not want to be quoted on record because “they’re enjoying watching the reaction the photo is generating online”.