By: Ankita Kulkarni
November 27 2023
2014 video of people celebrating ceasefire agreement in Gaza shared as recent
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Screenshots of a social media post claiming that it shows Gazans celebrating the recent truce. (Source: X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)
Fact-Check
The Verdict Misleading
The viral clip shows celebrations in Gaza following the announcement of a ceasefire agreement in August 2014. It is unrelated to the recent truce.
Claim ID 629ab181
What's the claim?
On November 22, 2023, Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas agreed to a four-day truce for the release of hostages with assistance from the United States and Qatar. Hamas has agreed to release 50 women and children held in Gaza, while Israel has said it will free 150 Palestinian women and children from its prisons.
Following this, a video shared on X (archived here) shows a huge crowd celebrating and showing the victory symbol. The caption, originally written in Arabic, roughly translates to, "Gaza celebrates the approval of the truce that will start tomorrow, Thursday I ask God Almighty to heal their wounds and inject their blood." The post has garnered around 28,000 views and is shared by other X and Facebook users with similar claims. Different archived versions of such posts can be viewed here, here, and here.
Screenshots of social media posts claiming that it shows Gazans celebrating the recent truce.
(Source: X/Facebook/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)
However, the video is not recent and shows people celebrating the 2014 ceasefire agreement.
What are the facts?
We identified the logo of "Al Jazeera" in the footnote. Using this, we located the same video on Al Jazeera Arabic's official YouTube channel, which was shared on August 27, 2014. The caption reads, "Celebrations in Gaza after the announcement of the ceasefire agreement. (translated from Arabic)."
Screenshot of the video uploaded by Al Jazeera. (Source: YouTube/Screenshot)
A Google search led us to a report published by Anadolu Agency on August 27, 2014. The report included an image from the celebration where we can identify the same person with a black blazer and a white shirt showing a victory symbol, as seen in the viral video.
Comparison between the viral video and the image in Anadolu Agency's report.
(Source: X/Anadolu Agency/Screenshot)
The report explained that thousands of people took to the streets in the Gaza Strip to celebrate the ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian factions and Israel after the 51-day conflict. It added that dozens of people were seen distributing sweets, raising Palestinian flags, and parading in cars and on motorcycles.
The Guardian also published a similar video of the celebration on August 27, 2014, captioned, "Hamas militants and residents of Gaza City celebrate on Tuesday following an agreement to an indefinite ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian groups."
The 2014 war in Gaza was a military operation launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip, which began on July 8, 2014, where more than 1,460 Palestinian civilians were believed to have died. After the violence that lasted over 50 days, Israeli and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip agreed to a ceasefire on August 26 of the same year.
The verdict
An old video of people in Gaza celebrating the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Palestinian militants in 2014 is now viral, with claims it depicts recent celebrations of the truce in 2023. The viral clip does not show current events; therefore, we have marked the claim as misleading.