Videos of Paratroopers from Egypt and the Bombing of Raqqa mosques from Syria are falsely shared as the Ongoing Israel Palestine war
Rating
Claim 1
These are not the scenes of the PUBG game, but the scenes of Hamas fighters attacking Israel. #فلسطين#طوفان_الأقصى #حماس #israel #hamas #Palestine #FreePalestine
Claim 2
Israel is very kind. Prayer accepted.. Israel would have let Azaan be completed #IStandWithIsrael
Explanation:
In early October 2023, war broke out between Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamist group that has controlled Gaza since 2006. Hamas fighters fired rockets into Israel and stormed southern Israeli cities and towns across the border of the Gaza strip, killing and injuring hundreds of soldiers and civilians and taking dozens of hostages. The attack took Israel by surprise, though the state quickly mounted a deadly retaliatory operation.
In this deadly atttack between Hamas and Israel, there are so many viral videos claiming it to be from both the regions. Here we going to analyse two such videos.
In the first claim we see a group of parachutes with people flying in the sky above a huge building. We also see many vehicles moving on the roads without any disturbance. This 16 second viral clip received 181.1K views, 1800Likes and more than 550 reposts.
These are not the scenes of the PUBG game, but the scenes of Hamas fighters attacking Israel.
Perfectly planned man. According to secret sources, Hamas has also dug out hundreds of underground tunnels, which will be useful in conducting operations against Israel#طوفان_الأقصى pic.twitter.com/gLm5Shsh2k— IStandWithPalestine🇵🇸 (@sheharyarafrid6) October 8, 2023
This video is shared with a claim stating that the ‘These are not the scenes of the PUBG game, but the scenes of Hamas fighters attacking Israel.’ This same video is widely shared on social media with similar claims can be seen here, here, and here.
Coming to the second claim, we see a mosque bursted into pieces. In the 10 second video we see a light green domed mosque in a distance which suddenly gets erupted. This video is shared with a claim stating that, ‘Israel is very kind. Prayer accepted.. Israel would have let Azaan be completed.’ The same video is shared by many social media users with similar claims can be viewed here, here, and here.
अजान तो पूरी हो जाने देते Israel 🇮🇱 😂 pic.twitter.com/eIAVc7Ga2V
— Prashant Umrao (@ippatel) October 8, 2023
Come, let’s check the veracity of these claims.
What’s the truth?
FACT CHECK 1
When we started our research using the keyframes of the viral clip, we were able to locate the same building in the Egypt region. When we took a screenshot of the building from the clip and used Google lens to translate the writings on the building, we found out that it’s written in Arabic as “Military College.’
We took this as a hint and further searched in the internet for the main building and we compared the viral clip along with the building and we concluded that the video is from Egypt and not from Israel or Palestine. The building is the Egypt Military Acdemy building where probably training should have happened. That video is falsely circulated connecting with the ongoing issue between Palestine and Israel war. Below is the comparison of the of two screenshots.
This clearly proves that the building shown in the sensational video along with the paratroopers flying in the sky is from Egypt and has nothing to do with the Hamas fighters attacking Israel.
FACT CHECK 2
When we started our research using the keyframes of this viral video showing a mosque destructed into pieces, it led us to many articels from 2014. According to the article from Al Jazeera, titled ‘Heritage sites ravaged by Syria’s war’, hundreds of ancient sites in Syria have been destroyed, damaged or looted in the course of the country’s ongoing conflict according to new “alarming” satellite evidence, the UN has said.
When we intensified our search we came to know that the mosque shown in the viral clip is Uwais al-Qarni. This was located in the city of Raqqa in Syria and was demolished by terror group ISIS in 2014. Moreover, the satellite images of the same mosque’s before and after destruction is available in the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) report.
This report has a detailed information regarding the damge of the mosque which can be read here.
Likewise, using the reverse search with the keyframes from the viral video, we found out the same video uploaded on 8 June 2014 by a YouTube channel namely, ‘Remi Sung Sub Yoon’ with a title ‘ISIS demolished the Ouweis al-Qarani shrine.’ This clearly proves that the viral video is very old and no way related to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
Also, the same viral clip was uploaded by the MINT on 26 August 2015, in its YouTube titled as “5 ancient sites ISIS has destroyed | In 90 seconds.” Here we can see the exact mosque around the timeline of 1 minute and 56 seconds in the video.
Thus, the above evidence is more to understand that the mosque was destroyed by the ISIS on 2014 is falsely shared as recent one from Israel and Palestine conflicts.
Conclusion:
Therefore, we conclude with all the available evidence that the above two claims have no connection with the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel.
In reality the paratoopers flying in the sky video is from Egypt and the second video showing the destruction of a mosque is from Syria done by ISIS in 2014.
