A video from 2020 of a controlled building demolition in Virginia, United States is viral with a false claim that it shows the US Embassy in Israel being blown by the Islamic militant group Hamas.
The Gaza strip which is controlled by Hamas, has been under constant bombardment by Israeli airstrikes after the attack by the militant group on October 7, 2023, which killed 1400 Israelis and taking around 200 hostages. Along with airstrikes, Israel has expanded its ground operations and is advancing on Gaza City from two directions, with tanks reported to be on the main north-south road. According to Gaza's Ministry of Health
more than 9,000 Palestinians, including many woman and children have been killed so far in these Israeli airstrikes.
In the seven second viral video, a building can be seen crashing down, with another building in the background where the US flag is clearly visible.
The viral video is being shared on Facebook with the caption, "US EMBASSY IN TEL AVIV BROUGHT DOWN". The video has the Tik Tok handle name - @disaster513 on it.
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The video is also being shared on YouTube with a similar false claim.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the incident in the viral video is from May 30, 2020 when Dominion Energy’s former headquarters was demolished in Richmond, Virginia, United States. The video is not a recent video from Tel Aviv, Israel, nor is the building the US Embassy in Tel Aviv as being claimed on social media.
Taking a hint from the Tik Tok handle visible in the viral video - @disaster513, we searched found an archive of the post uploaded on October 27, 2023, with the same false claim.
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We then ran a reverse image search on the video after removing the text that had been superimposed on it. The search results showed that the building in the viral photo is Dominion Energy’s former headquarters that was demolished in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Taking a hint from this we located the buildings in the viral video to Richmond, Virginia, United States.
A photo on Getty Images, showed the same building with the US flag that is seen in the viral video. This shows that the video is from United States and not from Israel as being claimed on social media. The description states that the building is Dominion Energy’s headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, United States which was pictured in July 2020.
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We then geo-located the building that is seen in the viral video on Google Maps .
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We further found a report published by NBC 12, on May 30, 2020 with details about the building demolition. The report stated that Dominion Energy’s former headquarters was demolished in Richmond, Virginia, United States on May 30, 2020. It further added that the building was imploded at 7 a.m. after a brief delay and all 21 floors of the former headquarters were brought down in a matter of seconds.
We can see the same building in this news report as in the viral video that can be seen collapsing.
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The viral video was previously also uploaded on Tik Tok back in January 2023 without any text claiming it is from Israel. Additionally, we found several other videos, dated the same day, showing the building demolition from several different angles. This matched the scenes in the viral video.
The videos can be seen below:
In December 2017, former US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and ordered that the US Embassy be moved there from Tel Aviv. The US Embassy in Israel was then relocated to Arnona in Southern Jerusalem.
Additionally, as of writing this article, we did not find any news reports about Hamas attacking the US Embassy in Israel.
