A video showing multiple explosions near a port is viral online with the false claim that it shows Iran attacking Israel.
BOOM found that the claims are false, the video is from March 23, 2024, and shows an explosion at the Sevastopol port in Russia-occupied Crimea.
On April 1, 2024, warplanes allegedly belonging to Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, killing at least 10 people, including leaders of the Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In response, Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel. “We will make them regret this crime and other similar ones with the help of God,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a statement a day after the attack.
The 10-second video shows two explosions recorded from a distance. A caption on X reads, "BREAKING– #Iran has started attack Against #Israel, bombs with heavy missiles going off Tel Aviv, fires of hell are burning, several buildings destroyed . ‼️ More Update Coming..."
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The video was also shared on Facebook with a similar caption.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video shows Ukraine's recent attack on Russia and is unrelated to the Middle East crisis involving Iran and Israel.
We ran a reverse image search of some key frames from the viral video on Google and found an Instagram post from March 24 that carried the same visuals. Part of the caption read, "Powerful explosions in Sevastopol🔥 Bright and loud, all the way I like it 😍" with other text like "Glory to Ukraine".
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Taking a hint from this, we ran a search for explosions at Sevastopol, a port in Crimea and found multiple reports about the incident.
According to this report by Ukraine's public broadcaster Suspilne, several residents in the area near Sevastopol reported hearing multiple explosions on the night of March 23. The report also states that at least 10 explosions were heard, and the attacks damaged some property and injured a child as well.
The report also carried videos of the explosions, one of which was an exact match to the viral video. The clip was taken from Telegram channel Crimean Wind.
The Telegram post from Crimean Wind can also be seen here.
Visuals of the viral video were also carried by news outlets like The Telegraph and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The Telegraph video was credited to an X account, @OSINTtechnical. We scanned this X page to look for the video and found that they had shared it on March 24, 2024. Further, an X account, @EjShahid, identifying as a volunteer at GeoConfirmed, an account specialising in geo-locating viral videos, confirmed that the clip was from Sevastopol.
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