By: Rajini KG
November 10 2023
2016 video from Syria shared as Hamas attack on Israeli soldiers in Gaza
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Screenshot of the viral video circulating online. (Source: X/Facebook/Screenshots/Modified by Logically Facts)
Fact-Check
The Verdict False
The video shows the Free Syrian Army attacking Iranian militias in 2016 in Aleppo region, Syria. It is unrelated to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Claim ID 5bc6630b
What is the claim?
A video of a missile strike on a group of soldiers standing close to a fenced wall was shared by an X (formerly Twitter) user on November 8, 2023, with the caption, “Israeli elite commandos were taken down by Hamas' guerilla fightrs with just a single rocket. Reportedly, there are hundreds of israeli soldiers dead in multiple attacks in #Gaza (sic).” An archived version of the post can be found here.
Screenshot of the viral video circulating online. (Source: X/Screenshots/Modified by Logically Facts)
However, the video is from Syria, not from the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Here are the facts
A reverse image search revealed that the video dates back to 2016. A Syrian news outlet ‘أورينت نيوز - Orient’ had shared a longer version of this video on YouTube on August 20, 2016. According to the title and description of the video, two missiles launched by the Syrian Army killed “Iranian militia” who were fighting in support of the Assad regime. At the timestamp of 0:41 seconds, we can see the viral clip. We can also see that a logo in the top right corner of the original video has been blurred out in the viral video.
Comparison of viral video and Orient News video. (Source: X/YouTube/Screenshots)
Al Jazeera Arabic also posted the same video in a report dated August 9, 2016, where it stated that when two militia groups attempted to storm the Air Force Technical College in the Ramousah area, south of Aleppo, they were attacked by missiles shot by Free Syrian Army groups. Syrian News (a local news website) also reports the same.
The civil war between the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad and rebel groups like the Free Syrian Army has been going on since 2011. While the U.S. has backed Assad, Russia has been backing the Free Syrian Army. Iran supplied military equipment to Assad's soldiers to back him throughout the Syrian civil war, Reuters reported.
The verdict
A seven-year-old video of a missile strike in Aleppo, Syria, has been falsely linked to the Israel- Hamas war. Therefore, we mark this claim as false.