2013 footage of U.S. Marines shared as U.S. troops deployed in Gaza

By: Emmi Kivi
November 16 2023

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What's the claim?

Over a month into the Israel-Hamas war, the ongoing violence has also raised concerns of a spillover into a wider conflict involving other countries.

Amid these escalation concerns, social media users are sharing videos of supposedly U.S. troops deployed in Gaza. For example, one post caption reads, “Thousands of US troop reinforcements arrive in Israel gear up to enter Gaza.” The video shows helicopters landing and the U.S. troops unloading and setting up camp. Matching footage was shared in another post with the added text “Breaking news – Please pray for Palestine.”

However, Logically Facts found that the footage of the U.S. Marines is from a U.S. military exercise in 2013. Neither has the U.S. deployed any troops to Gaza nor has it stated plans to do so.

What we found

The White House has stated that the U.S. will not place troops on the ground in Gaza in any future peacekeeping role. “There’s no plans or intentions to put U.S. military troops on the ground in Gaza, now or in the future,” the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, stated on November 1. 

A reverse image search of a few key frames of the footage led us to a YouTube video published on May 18, 2013. The video headlined, “U.S. Marines CH-53 Super Stallion Helicopters Landing And Take-off,” displayed matching visuals to the social media footage.

The video description conveyed more details from where the footage was captured, “Footage of U.S. Marines from 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, 26 MEU out of Camp Lejeune, N.C. based on the USS San Antonio for the exercise.”

These screenshots show further matching visuals displayed in the viral video (left) and the other 2013 YouTube video (right). 
Source: TikTok/YouTube/Logically Facts 

A google search led us to a news piece and another YouTube video with matching footage. The YouTube video headlined "Marines Land in Support of Eagle Resolve 2013" was published on April 29, 2013. The Eagle Resolve is an annual naval, land, and air exercise designed to enhance the regional cooperative defense efforts of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the U.S. The news piece by the Defence Visual Information Distribution Service discloses the footage displays the arrival of the U.S. Marines at Camp Al-Galail, Qatar, for Exercise Eagle Resolve 2013.

Logically Facts continues to monitor and cover misleading and erroneous claims as they emerge.

The verdict

The U.S. has not deployed troops in Gaza. The video is old and unrelated to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The White House has stated that the U.S. has no intention, now or in the future, to put U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza. The video was captured in 2013 and shows U.S. Marines unloading and setting up camp for the Eagle Resolve exercise. Therefore, we marked the claim as false.