What was claimed
A video shows a ”new air assault” on Israel.
Our verdict
This is an old video from May 2021.
Video supposedly showing ‘new air assault’ on Israel actually dates from 2021
9 October 2023
A video being shared on social media falsely claims to show a “new air assault” on Israel.
The video, which shows rockets fired into the sky near tall buildings, has been shared on both Facebook and Twitter with captions featuring the word “BREAKING” and claims that “Hamas militants” have started “a new air assault” on Israel.
However, the video does not show events in Israel and the Gaza Strip in recent days. It instead dates from May 2021, which saw a separate period of violence between Israel and Hamas.
The video was shared on Facebook as early as 15 May 2021 and specifies the location to be the Israeli city of Ashdod. The clip is included in a compilation video that was posted to YouTube with the caption: “Iron dome in action 11 of may 2021 [sic]”. The “Iron Dome” is Israel’s air-defence system which is designed to intercept rockets, artillery and mortars.
The clip was also shared by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on 19 May 2021 with the caption: “4,000 rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel in the last 10 days. We will continue to defend Israel.” The IDF Facebook post has more than 1.2 million views, while the same footage has almost 5,000 reposts on the IDF’s X (formerly Twitter) account.
Misinformation can spread quickly during large-scale news events. Full Fact has written about a number of other online claims about recent events in Israel and the Gaza Strip, including footage of helicopters which is actually from a video game, and posts wrongly claiming the Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi had expressed support for “the Palestinian cause” on Instagram.
We've also written about misleading images and videos relating to other global events such as the recent floods in Libya, earthquake in Morocco and wildfires in Maui.
It's important to consider whether a post shows what it claims before sharing it online. We have tips on how to do this in our How to spot misleading images online and How to fact check misleading videos guides.
Image courtesy of yfrimer
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the video does not show a “new air assault on Israel”—it was filmed in May 2021.