Claim: A video shows an Israeli tank running over a car in the Gaza Strip.
Fact: The video was shared as early as 2007 and is unrelated to the ongoing war in Palestine. It has been repurposed over the years by social media users linking it to different military conflicts.
Political and military tensions between Israel and Palestine have escalated since the Israeli military resumed attacks on Gaza on 18 March 2025, violating a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
Recently, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported that an estimated 420,000 Palestinians have been displaced again since Israel broke the ceasefire. On 16 April 2025, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the country would continue blocking humanitarian aid from entering into Gaza.
In Pakistan, certain political factions have lately registered a strong response against Israel’s military operations in Gaza, with religious parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI)openly condemning Israel’s attacks. The JI called for a nationwide strike on 26 April 2025 to protest Israel’s actions in Gaza.
On 17 April 2025, a Facebook user shared a video with the following caption in Urdu:
آفسوس صد افسوس”
فلسطین غزہ کے مظلوم مسلمانوں پر اسرائیلی فوج کا ظلم، جبر اور بربریت کی انتہا …یا اللہ تعالیٰ مظلوم فلسطینی مسلمانوں کی مدد فرماہیں۔ امین یا رب العالمین .
“انا للّٰہ وانا الیہ راجعون
This translates into English as follows:
“The cruelty, coercion and brutality of the Israeli army on the oppressed Muslims of Palestine, Gaza…may Allah help the oppressed Palestinian Muslims. Amen oh Lord of the Worlds
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un”
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse-image search of the video’s keyframes to ascertain its origin. The earliest instance was from 21 March 2007 on YouTube, with the caption “AAV crushing insurgents [sic] car”.
Searching for “AAV Iraq” on Google, revealed that AAV was an abbreviation for Assault Amphibious Vehicle. While there was no information on the location shown in the video, a run-through of the account that posted it suggests it might be from Iraq. This is because the account mostly shares videos about military warfare in Iraq with captions like “Iraq Car Bomb”, “AAV firing MK154 in Iraq”, “Funny AAV Driver in Iraq”.
Chronologically, the video was next shared on 29 June 2013, on Aparat, an Iranian video-sharing platform. Here, the caption attributed it to Iraq, and stated:
“When Americans are unemployed and bored in Iraq, look what they do!”
We also found posts on Facebook that had later claimed the video was from Afghanistan and showed aggression by NATO forces and American troops. These instances were from September 2013, March 2014, January 2015, June 2017, and June 2019. Another instance of the video from X (formerly Twitter), dated 31 July 2021, also claimed it was from Afghanistan.
We then conducted a search for “American tank Iraq crushes car”. While this did not lead us to the video in the claim, it did show us a different clip from what appears to be a documentary in which American soldiers in Iraq crush a civilian’s car for allegedly trying to steal wood. A source on X claimed the video was from 2003 (and the video’s top right frame confirms this as well). Another instance of the video was also found on Wayback Machine.
Soch Fact Check could not ascertain the exact location in the video in the claim or its precise origin. However, seeing that it was shared as early as March 2007, we can confirm that it is unrelated to the ongoing war in Palestine.
Besides, the video has circulated over the years with users linking it to Iraq or the American invasion of Afghanistan. Hence, posts linking it to Israel’s war in Gaza are false.
Virality
On Facebook, the video was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On X, the video was shared here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The video in the claim was shared online as early as 2007 and is unrelated to the ongoing war in Palestine. While Soch Fact Check could not ascertain its exact context, the video has been repurposed and linked to different conflicts over the years, including the US invasion of Afghanistan.
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Background image in cover photo: France 24