FALSE: This video is not of Israel’s conflict with Iran
The video was captured in 2014 in eastern Ukraine.
This video shared on Threads claiming to depict the conflict between Israel and Iran is FALSE.
The video captures a barrage of missiles lighting up the night sky as a cloud of smoke bellows below.
“Iran attacking ISRAEL. Iron dom defense system failed to stop the ballistic missile action.???( sic),” the accompanying post reads in part.
The claim was published following Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel on 13 April 2024, in retaliation for a suspected Israeli airstrike on its embassy in Damascus, Syria, on 1 April 2024.
A reverse image search of a screen grab from the video brings up various instances where the footage has been shared online. Among the results is an image posted on X (formerly Twitter) by Conflict News on 30 November 2014 containing an image captured from the video.
A keyword search returns information from various sources about the conflict between Ukraine and the NAF forces in 2014 when the video was posted.
The text accompanying the image reads, “Massive Ukrainian Grad barrage against #NAF positions in eastern #Ukraine.” This indicates that the video we are fact-checking had nothing to do with the conflict between Iran and Israel.
The footage has also been shared on this YouTube channel on 2 December 2014, indicating that it precedes the April 2024 conflict between Iran and Israel.
PesaCheck also previously debunked a similar claim where the footage under scrutiny had been shared as Yemen purportedly firing missiles at Israel.
The debunk established that the video had also been posted on the Russian video platform RUTUBE on 30 November 2014 and titled, “2014.11.30. The Ukrainian army shoots at the cities of Donbass from GRADs.”
PesaCheck examined a video shared on Threads claiming to depict the conflict between Israel and Iran and found it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Harriet Ogayo and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck’s managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
