Claim: Footage shows Chinese aircraft delivering aid to the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
Fact: The video likely shows Chinese aircraft flying over pyramids in Giza, Egypt, as part of the joint military exercises conducted between China and Egypt earlier this month.
A Facebook user posted a video (archive) purportedly showing Chinese aircraft delivering aid to Gaza in Palestine. The text superimposed on the video reads [translated from Urdu]: China delivers aid to Gaza amid tight security.”
The description of the post further states [translated from Urdu]: “China delivered aid to Gaza in full security, which 57 Islamic countries could not do. There were warships all around the aid, which were equipped with powerful bombs. This is how sieges are broken. China loves you, thanks.”
Soch Fact Check debunked similar videos claiming to show China delivering aid to Gaza here.
Gaza on the brink of famine after Israel’s total blockade
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are facing an imminent famine, a crisis precipitated by Israel’s previous ban on humanitarian aid and supplies from entering Gaza since the end of a ceasefire in early March 2025. The supplies included life-saving “food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas, for 2.1 million people.”
“Repeated requests to collect aid sitting at the Karem Shalom border crossing have also been systematically rejected, no further hostages have been released and Israel has cut power to southern Gaza’s desalination plant, limiting access to clean water for 600,000 people,” said the UN report.
In May 2025, 198 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip after the 11-week blockade through the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to the UN. However, the UN aid relief coordinator Tom Fletcher said that significant challenges remained, including “delays in coordination approvals and inappropriate routes being provided by Israeli forces that are not viable for the movement of cargo.”
The United Nations-led Food Security Sector reported that half a million people faced starvation in the Gaza Strip, which it said reflected a “major deterioration.”
The Human Rights Watch said Israel’s blockade of aid was a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.” The report noted that thousands of Palestinians had died due to malnutrition resulting from Israel’s blocking of food, water, and essential life-saving supplies.
As early as December 2023, HRW reported that Israel was using starvation of civilians as a warfare tactic, which constituted a war crime.
Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has killed approximately 53,655 Palestinians and injured 121,950 people, according to UNRWA.
Israel’s latest attack on a school that sheltered displaced people and a house in Jabalia on 26 May killed 50 people, according to Al Jazeera.
Furthermore, a +972 Magazine, a nonprofit magazine, released an investigation into the destruction in Gaza that revealed a systemic destruction of housing units in Rafah, the southern city in Gaza. Nearly 50,000 housing units, which constitute 90% of the residential neighbourhoods, have been destroyed in Rafah since October 2023.
“The systematic destruction of residential buildings and public structures has become a central part of the Israeli army’s operations, and in many cases, the primary objective,” the investigation found.
Fact or Fiction?
Reverse-searching keyframes from the video revealed that the video likely shows China conducting joint military drills with Egypt.
Firstly, the reverse-search yielded a video (archive) by an X user, posted on 17 May, that matches the one in the claim. The caption stated, “A glimpse of Chinese air power over the Pyramids of Egypt during Exercise Eagles of Civilization 2025.”
Taking cues from this, a keyword search yielded reports about the joint military exercise between China and Egypt. On 6 May, Reuters reported on the joint exercise in its article, “Chinese fighter jets soar over Egypt in first joint exercises.” The cover photo shows jets flying over the pyramids from a different angle, which aligns with the scene in the video from the claim. The report stated that the exercise “aimed at chipping away at U.S. strategic influence in the volatile region,” while another article detailed that it lasted for two weeks.
A side-by-side comparison of a screengrab from the video in the claim and on the right is the image carried by the Reuters report.
“This will help enhance technical and tactical capabilities of the two air forces and deepen substantive cooperation between the Chinese and Egyptian militaries,” according to the spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense.
CGTNEurope, a Chinese state-run television network, also reported (archive) on the “Eagles of Civilization 2025” military drill on 5 May. Up until timestamp 0:08 in the CGTNEurope video, visuals show aircraft flying over the pyramid, which has been filmed from an elevated position, likely from one of the aircraft itself. These visuals resemble the cover photo carried by the Reuters’ report as well as the video from the claim, an indication that the aircraft were part of the military drill. Its Facebook description stated, “The air forces of China and Egypt have completed their first-ever joint training exercises. The drills included air superiority combat, air defense suppression, and low-altitude flyovers of the Pyramids.”
Furthermore, the recent report on China delivering aid to Gaza dates back to February 2025. And this footage in question is not linked to China delivering aid.
Therefore, Soch Fact Check’s investigation strongly suggests that the footage in the claim does not show Chinese jets delivering aid to Gaza.
Virality
The video was shared on Facebook here, here, here, and here.
The video was shared on Instagram here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On X, here, and here (1st video).
On TikTok here.
Conclusion: Footage of Chinese aircraft flying over pyramids likely depicts a joint military exercise between China and Egypt held earlier this month, and not China delivering aid to Gaza.
Background image in cover photo: HRW
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