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| - By: Sam Doak
December 21 2023
This video predates recent attacks in the Red Sea. Contemporaneous accounts claim it is an Emirati vessel.
Context
Yemeni militants aligned with the country’s Houthi movement have targeted shipping in the Red Sea. Framed as a response to Israel’s targeting of Gaza, the attacks have caused over 100 cargo ships to be rerouted to date, forcing many to take circuitous routes around the continent of Africa rather than through the Suez Canal.
Against this backdrop, a video has circulated widely on social media. Partially filmed from above, it shows a number of people celebrating on what appears to be a commercial cargo vessel. While the video itself does not give any further context, social media users have claimed that it shows Houthi militants holding a wedding ceremony on a captured Israeli vessel.
An example of a post that made this claim was shared on Instagram with the caption, “The first Yemeni wedding party on an Israeli ship.” Despite offering no corroborating details, this was liked over 77,500 times by platform users.
Despite many social media users seemingly believing that this video was filmed on a recently captured Israeli ship, Logically Facts has determined that this is not the case.
In fact
A reverse image search of keyframes from the video unearths news articles that state the ship shown is an Emirati vessel named Rawabi. The articles, dated November 2022, do not mention the state of Israel.
Coverage published by the Iranian Arabic-language news outlet Al-Alam, described the event shown, stating, “Hodeidah Governorate celebrated the wedding of 572 grooms and brides within the third mass wedding with the support of the General Authority for Zakat under the slogan 'Together to facilitate the dowries, immunize young people and face soft war.' In the ceremony organized by the office of the General Authority of Zakat on board the Emirati ship “Rawabi”, before the grooms moved to the square of the martyr President Al-Sammad for the performances, the governor of Hodeidah, Mohammed Ayyash Qahim, congratulated the grooms on completing half of their religion.”
An account published around the same time by Al-Haqiqa describes the events similarly. A video of the event, shared on YouTube by Al Hawya on November 9, 2022, is identical to the one currently circulating.
The verdict
This video has been circulating since November 2022. Accounts published at that time state that it was an Emirati ship, not an Israeli one. This claim has therefore been marked as false.
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