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| - By: Rajeswari Parasa
October 1 2024
The viral video is from 2023 and shows Hamas attacking Ashdod in Israel. It is not a recent Hezbollah attack on Israel.
What is the claim?
A video on social media, shared alongside claims that it shows a Hezbollah attack, shows a couple of cars in flames. A woman can also be heard crying.
An X (previously Twitter) user shared the video (archived here) with a caption, "#BREAKING — Scenes from Acre, northern Israel, after the earlier Hezbollah attacks. Local residents can be heard not so pleased with the situation." Archives of similar posts are here and here.
Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a significant escalation on September 27, 2024. Since then, Hezbollah has threatened to target crucial buildings in Israel, which includes Ashdod's cargo port, if Israel launches an all-out war.
The claim in the post is false, however. The video shows Hamas attacking Israel in 2023, not Hezbollah.
What are the facts?
A reverse image search showed that the video is not recent, as it has been online since October 2023.
On October 9, 2023, Sky News shared a video on its YouTube channel titled "Israel-Hamas war: Death toll continues to rise on both sides." In this video (archived here), at around the 0:17 timestamp, we can see the exact visuals related to the viral video.
The Sky News report states that four cars were ignited by a Hamas rocket in Ashdod, the southern city of Israel. The report added that a 50-year-old woman died in this attack.
Further, we have also found the same video on a couple of Arabic news websites, Sahafa24 (archived here) and alkhabaralyemeni (archived here), which were published on October 9, 2023.
We also found it on a video community platform, Newsflare. The video (archived here) was posted along with other footage. It was captioned as "Destruction in Ashdod, Israel after Hamas attack with rocket fire from Gaza."
We have also searched whether there were any attacks by Hezbollah on Ashdod. However, we did not find any recent news reports. On September 23, there was an attack by Hezbollah on Acre. However, there were no casualties, and rescue services were put on "high alert," Le Monde reports. The video is not from this attack.
The October 7 attacks
Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. In this attack, thousands of rockets were fired from Gaza into the southern part of Israel. Several cities, including Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Jerusalem, were affected.
The verdict
An old video of Hamas launching a surprise attack on Israel was shared with an incorrect claim that it shows a recent Hezbollah attack on Israel.
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