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| - What was claimed
A video shows a Bethlehem church “under attack” from stones and gunfire during Christmas.
Our verdict
The video was filmed in October 2022 in the town of Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem in the West Bank.
A video shows a Bethlehem church “under attack” from stones and gunfire during Christmas.
The video was filmed in October 2022 in the town of Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem in the West Bank.
An old video of a church being attacked near Bethlehem is being shared with misleading claims it occurred at Christmas in 2024.
Users on Facebook have been sharing a video over the Christmas period, in which people can be seen running, shouting and throwing stones outside a church while sirens blare and an emergency vehicle arrives.
Captions shared with the clip say: “Bethlehem Church Under Attack: Muslims Target Holy Site with Stones and Gunfire During Christmas.”
It was also shared on X (formerly Twitter) on 24 December with the caption: “Watch: Palestinian Muslims attack church in Bethlehem during rehearsals for Christmas.”
But this video was not filmed in the run up to Christmas last year.
The same footage was shared on X in October 2022, when it was described as showing an attack on a church in the town of Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem. Media reports also covered the incident at the time.
Using Google Lens and geolocation tools, Full Fact confirmed that the church in the video is the Forefathers Greek Orthodox Church in Beit Sahour in the West Bank.
It’s important to consider whether what you are seeing on social media is accurate before sharing.
We have previously fact checked other miscaptioned videos in relation to conflict in the Middle East, including a video claimed to show the “ruins of Gaza” which is actually from Syria, and a video of a factory fire in the West Bank that was claimed to show a Hezbollah attack on Israel.
For help identifying misleading content, see our guides on how to verify pictures and videos.
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 partly false because the video was filmed in October 2022, and the incident did not happen during the 2024 Christmas period.
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
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