A video showing a massive explosion and people running around a street is being shared online with a false claim that it shows an Indian Army attack on Sialkot, Pakistan.
BOOM found that the 2023 footage shows a violent Israeli bombardment near the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.
India has taken major diplomatic actions against Pakistan following the deadly terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, on April 22, which claimed 26 lives. With both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah vowing retaliation, tensions between the two nuclear-powered countries have escalated. Meanwhile, Pakistan has stated that they have credible intelligence suggesting India may take military action against them.
Amid this, the video is being shared with a caption, "Breaking News Al Jazeera Channel has released new footage of the Indian Army's attack on Sialkot, Pakistan. 1 ReTweet = Pakistan Removed From World Drop Heart In Comments For Army".
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Fact Check
BOOM broke the video into keyframes, ran a reverse image search on them, and came across a post from November 9, 2023, carrying the same video along with news outlet Al Jazeera's watermark.
Palestine-based news outlet Quds News Network shared the video on their verified X handle with the caption, "Scenes documenting the violent bombing by the Israeli occupation that targeted the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. Several deaths and injuries have been reported, most of whom are children."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Taking a cue, we ran a related keyword search in Arabic and found the same video on Al Jazeera Arabic's official YouTube channel, dated November 9, 2023.
The video was posted with a caption that translates to, "Violent airstrikes hit the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip."
On November 10, 2023, Voice of America published a report on the incident, citing Marwan Jilani, director general of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, stating that four hospitals in northern Gaza had been hit in the past 24 hours.
According to the report, Jilani said the hospitals — Al-Shifa, Al-Awda, Al-Quds, and the Indonesian Hospital — had all come under fire as Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas' October 7 terror attack in southern Israel.
