A video showing a group of individuals in military uniform getting struck by a missile is being shared with the false claim that it shows Israeli soldiers getting hit by a missile, in the backdrop of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
BOOM found that the video dates back to 2016, and shows members of the Syrian armed forces being struck by a missile while fighting opposition forces near Aleppo.
On October 7, the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip launched a surprise attack on border towns of Israel and killed at least 1400 Israelis. In response, Israel retaliated with airstrikes on Gaza. According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 4,469 Palestinians lost their lives.
The video was shared on social media with the caption, "Large crowd of #israel soldiers gets hit by a missile."
Click here to view the post.
Fact Check
BOOM broke the video into its keyframes and did a reverse image search on a few of them and found the same video being uploaded on Facebook over seven years ago.
The video was uploaded on August 19, 2016, with an Arabic caption, that translates to English as, "Eyewitness #Aleppo || Two groups of Assad forces were targeted in the vicinity of the Air College with two guided missiles."
Taking cue from this we did a keyword search on Google and found a news article by Al Jazeera published on August 19, 2016, which carried a longer version of the viral video.
The article, titled "The opposition repels a regime attack in Aleppo and welcomes the truce" in Arabic, details an attempt by Syrian Armed Forces to storm the Air Technical College in the Ramousah area, to the south of Aleppo.
According to the report, the video shows the targeted killing of members of the Syrian Armed Forces by Fatah Halab Operations Room, an armed member of the Syrian rebel factions.
