Claim: A video shows Israel’s Iron Dome repelling rockets fired by Iran-backed Hezbollah. The video was posted on 14 April, soon after Iran began its retaliatory attack on Israel.
Fact: The video is at least six months old and does not depict Israel intercepting the recent drone and missile attacks by Iran, in this case specifically by the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group, Hezbollah.
On 14 April, X user @SumitHansd shared a video with the following caption, “Israel’s Iron Dome Missile System Intercepts Massive Rocket Attack By Iran-Backed Hezbollah.” The 27-second long video claims to show an unsuccessful attack on Ashkelon, Israel, by a barrage of rocket fire from Hezbollah that was intercepted by the Iron Dome. In the video, the night sky is visibly lit up during the exchange of rocket fire, with the sound of bombardment audible in the background.
Two days before Iran’s drone attack on Israel, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group fired a volley of rockets at northern Israel on 12 April. This armed group, along with Hamas and the Houthis, are reportedly allied with Iran.
One of the images in the X post is an image from the Hezbollah attack, which may lead viewers to believe that the video shows the same incident, or that it depicts Iran’s drone attacks a day later, on 13 April.
Fact or Fiction?
When Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse image search of keyframes of the video, we found several articles and social media posts from six months ago that used the same imagery from the video clip in the misleading claim.
The earliest news article with the original YouTube video, showing the Iron Dome intercepting the rocket fire, appeared on 11 October 2023. According to the headline of the report, the footage shows moments from when, “Israel’s Iron Dome was activated against Hamas missiles!”
AlMarsd’s article, also published in October 2023, carries a screen grab of the video along with the video clip from the viral claim itself. According to the publication, translated from Arabic to English, the video clip shows “the Israeli ‘Iron Dome’ responding to missiles fired from Gaza at Ashkelon”, an attack that was orchestrated by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas and not Hezbollah.
The article also carries an embedded X post containing the video clip from the viral claim, dated 12 October 2023, which additionally confirms that the footage is not recent and predates Hezbollah’s recent rocket attack on Israel on 12 April.
Furthermore, a Turkish publication, Birgün Newspaper reported on the attack on 26 October 2024. This article contains an image similar to the screen grab of the video published in the AlMarsd article cited above. However, this report claims the attack is on Tel Aviv, Israel and not Ashkelon which is 57-kms away.
On 18 November 2023, X user @Kaia63 also posted the same video with a caption claiming that the video was recorded from “a friend’s apartment.” Even though Soch Fact Check cannot confirm the authenticity of the user’s claim, the date of the post confirms that the viral footage does not show Israel responding to last week’s rocket attacks in Northern Israel carried out by Hezbollah.
Additionally, a closer look at the video reveals The Telegraph’s logo on the top right corner of the frame. When Soch Fact Check conducted a keyword search for such a post by the publication, we found the 42-second long YouTube video by The Telegraph posted six months ago. The title of the video confirms that the footage depicts “Israel’s Iron Dome intercepts Hamas rockets in Ashkelon.”
Soch Fact Check also conducted the reverse image search of the photograph that was posted along with the video in the viral claim. We found two news articles carrying the image, published a few days before Iran’s attack. According to the news reports, the image shows rocket fire by Hezbollah.
Therefore, Soch Fact Check concludes that a post on X, claiming to show footage of Israel’s Iron Dome intercepting the 12 April rocket attacks by Hezbollah is misleading.
Virality
The original X post generated at least 813,000 views.
It was shared on X here, here and here.
On Instagram, the old video was shared with the misleading claim here.
The video was also shared on Instagram as part of a montage of different clips that apparently show events after the recent Iran attacks. Soch Fact Check investigated the second clip in October 2023, and found it was not taken in Israel or Palestine.
The third clip of people panicking is actually from a Louis Tomlinson concert in Argentina, as is detailed in this article.
Conclusion: The video footage of Israel’s Iron Dome intercepting rockets is not recent. Even though Israel’s Iron Dome reportedly intercepted rockets launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon on 12 April, the video clip actually shows the Iron Dome intercepting rockets fired by Hamas in October 2023.
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Background image in cover photo: CNN
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