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| - Fact Check: This 500-year-old ancient Torah was NOT recovered from Assad's palace in Syria
India Today Fact Check found that the video is from Tunisia and dates back to March 2017.
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India Today Fact Check
This video is not from Syria, but from Tunisia and dates back to March 2017.
Crowds roaming Bashar al-Assad’s presidential palace found Louis Vuitton suitcases, luxury cars including Aston Martins and a Lamborghini, and much more — indications of how much wealth the deposed tyrant had accumulated as Syria suffered. Amongst the many videos of people looting Assad’s palace, one clip claimed to show a rare Torah scroll, nearly 500 years old, that was found in the basement. A Torah scroll is a handwritten copy of the first five books of the Bible and is an essential part of the Jewish faith.
This video shows uniformed personnel unfolding a roll of a manuscript that appears ancient. In the latter part, the personnel are seen exchanging words with the journalists. This clip was shared across social media platforms with captions like: "This morning, an ancient 500-year-old Torah scroll was discovered in the basement of Bashar Al-Assad's palace in Damascus. Here is a short video of it. We are living through history almost every day!"
India Today Fact Check has found that the video is more than seven years old and from Tunisia, not Syria.
Our Probe
Responding to one such post, many Instagram users pointed out in comments that this clip is from 2017.
A reverse search of keyframes from the viral video led us to the original version shared by a Tunisian news outlet named Attessia TV Channel Nine on March 14, 2017. This made it evident that the video can not be related to the toppled Assad regime in Syria.
The Arabic caption of this post suggested that the Torah manuscript discovered was more than 500 years old. Subsequent searches led us to an Al Jazeera report from March 17, 2017, that said this manuscript was seized by the Tunisian Ministry of Interior just as smugglers were trying to transport it to Europe.
This report mentioned that the manuscript was in Hebrew and the National Heritage Institute confirmed that it was from the 15th century and was a rare historical artefact of high value.
The Times of Israel in its report from March 12, 2017, mentioned that the scroll was made of ox skin and contained all five books of the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Thus, it is safe to conclude that a 2017 video from Tunisia, a nation in Africa, was falsely shared in connection to the Assad regime’s fall in Syria.
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