By: Nikolaj Kristensen
March 21 2024
Video does not show recent Israeli bombing of Al-Shifa Hospital
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(Source: X/Screenshot)
Fact-Check
The Verdict Misleading
The video was uploaded prior to a recent raid on the hospital. It shows a bombing in Rafah, according to the user who seemingly shared it first.
Claim ID 329e5c0c
Context
A video of a bombing seen through a window from the inside of a dark apartment is circulating on social media, with users incorrectly claiming it to show an Israeli strike on the Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza.
The Israeli army did raid the hospital on March 18, 2024, but the video shows a bombing in Rafah, a city near Gaza's southern border where more than a million displaced Gazans are currently sheltering, according to the person who originally uploaded it. The user uploaded the video in the days before the recent raid on the hospital.
In fact
Two watermarks can be seen on the video purportedly showing a bombing of Al-Shifa, one for Instagram user @everydaypalestine and one unspecified @mahmoud_al.saleh.
We found the video uploaded to the everydaypalestine Instagram account on March 18, but there's no mention of where the incident occurred. The watermark @mahmoud_al.saleh is also visible in the video.
Through a Google search, we found that the handle belongs to Instagram user Mahmoud Khaled Alsaleh, who uploaded the video to his Instagram on March 16. This is the earliest version of the video we found. The thumbnail of the video shows the text (in Arabic), "Ramadan in Rafah." In a comment on the video, the user wrote "Rafah" next to a red pushpin, indicating this to be the location of the video.
The thumbnail on the video says "Ramadan in Rafah" in Arabic, suggesting the video is from southern Gaza. (Source: Instagram/Google/Screenshots/edited by Logically Facts)
In the video, we can see another person, closer to the window, also filming the explosion. Mahmoud Khaled Alsaleh uploaded another video on March 16, appearing to show the same explosion filmed from the perspective of this other person.
Another video (on the right) seemingly shows the same incident from a different angle. (Source: Instagram/Screenshots/edited by Logically Facts).
Logically Facts has contacted Mahmoud Khaled Alsaleh, but has not yet received a response.
During the night of March 18, 2024, Israeli soldiers raided the Al-Shifa Hospital and killed "more than twenty terrorists," according to an Israeli army press briefing.
The verdict
The video was uploaded two days prior to Israel's recent raid on Al-Shifa Hospital. According to the Instagram user who was seemingly the first to publish it, the video is from the southern city of Rafah, not the northern part of Gaza where the Al-Shifa Hospital is found. Therefore, we have marked this claim as misleading.
