A video of a street with burning debris including cars has gone viral with the claim that it shows the aftermath of a Hezbollah attack in Northern Israel.
A social media user shared the video and wrote, “Scenes from Acre, northern Israel, after the earlier Hezbollah attacks. Local residents can be heard not so pleased with the situation.”
SouthCheck found that the claim was misleading. We found that the video is old and from Ashdod, a city in Israel, after it was targeted by a Hamas rocket.
On doing a Google reverse image search, we found an RT news report published on October 2023, titled ‘At least 800 killed and 2,382 wounded following Hamas incursion in Israel’.
At around 41 seconds into the news report, the viral clip was featured in it. The video caption read, “Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv, have been targeted by Hamas on the third day of hostilities. Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Minister has ordered a complete blockade of Gaza and proclaimed that Israel is fighting ‘human animals.’”
The video was also featured in a news report by Sky News on October 9, 2023. It was titled, ‘Israel-Hamas war: Cars on fire as rocket hits Ashdod’. The description read, “Eyewitness videos verified by Sky News show burning cars and black clouds of smoke following the attack.” Although SouthCheck couldn’t identify the exact location of the video, as per the news reports, the video is from Ashdod.
Hence, we conclude that the viral video is old and not related to the growing escalation of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.