By: Nikolaj Kristensen
April 23 2024
Video does not show fire in Jordan after Iranian missiles were shot down
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(Source: X/Instagram/Screenshots)
Fact-Check
The Verdict Misleading
The footage depicts petrol tanks on fire and was shot two weeks before Iran fired drones and missiles against Israel.
Claim ID 94365183
Context
A video showing a small crowd gathered in front of a fire in what appears to be building structures under a night sky is being shared on social media with claims that it shows a fire in Jordan after the country shot down Iranian missiles heading toward Israel.
Iran launched an attack on Israel involving over 300 drones and missiles on April 13 in retaliation to Israel’s bombing of an Iranian consulate in Syria earlier that month.
"You can see the damage from the missile in the Jordanian city of Al-Ramtha as the Jordanian regime protects Israel at the expense of the safety of its own people," says a post on Instagram with the video.
Jordan reportedly did shoot down dozens of Iranian drones headed for Israel during the April 13 attack. However, the video does not show the aftermath of the Iranian strikes. The footage is from two weeks prior when petrol tanks caught fire in the city of Ramtha.
In fact
We could not source the origin of the video on social media. It bears the TikTok handle “amgdlhdrabsi,” but the video is no longer available on the TikTok account matching that name. Logically Facts messaged the user for comment, but received no answer.
However, through a Google reverse image search, we found videos similar to the one of the alleged shot down missiles in Jordan.
A couple of these videos were uploaded to YouTube on March 27, 2024. According to video titles, these videos show three oil tanks on fire in the city of Ramtha. We also found news reports from the same day telling of an oil tank fire that happened the night prior. We compared the YouTube videos and news reports to the video circulating on social media and found they were filmed in the same location.
A comparison of the viral video to videos of the fire in Ramtha on March 26 shows they were filmed in the same location. (Source: YouTube/Roya News/X/Screenshots)
Furthermore, we found a video of the Ramtha fire on Facebook, uploaded on March 27 just past midnight. In this video we saw a couple of people who are also featured in the video on social media. For example, we saw a man in a light grey shirt with two stripes across the chest, a darker grey one above a black one. He’s walking in front of a child in a red shirt with two stripes on the sleeve, a black one above a white one. The man and the child appear several times on the left side in the video on social media.
People in the Facebook video (above) of the fire on March 26 matches people seen in the video on social media (below). (Source: Facebook/X/Screenshots)
We also matched people from the Facebook video with people seen in the YouTube videos of the fire.
The verdict
The video predates Iran’s April 13 aerial attack on Israel. It was filmed on March 26 when petrol tanks caught fire in Ramtha. Therefore, we have marked the claim as misleading.