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Does This Video Show Pakistanis Celebrating After Bondi Beach Terror Attack? No!

We were able to trace the clip back to 8 October 2023, which predates the Bondi Beach attack by over two years.

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Social media users are sharing a video showing fireworks and Palestinian flags, claiming that it shows people in Pakistan celebrating the horrific mass shooting near Australia's Bondi Beach on 14 December, which claimed 15 lives and left many more injured.

  • Some users also claimed that the celebrations took place after one of the attackers, Naveed Akram, was allegedly identified as a Pakistani national.

At the time of writing this report, this post by X user '@defencealerts' had gathered more than 3.8 lakh views.

(Archived versions of more claims can be seen here, here, and here.)

But...?: The claim is false, as the video dates back to October 2023 and has nothing to do with the Bondi Beach terror attack.

  • Additionally, one of the attackers, Sajid Akram, was found to be of Indian-origin and not Pakistani, as claimed.

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How do we know?: We ran a reverse image search on the video, which led us to an X post shared on 8 October 2023.

  • The post said that the video showed people "Celebrating the victory of HAMAS at Karachi, Pakistan," and that the event had been shared by the Imamia Student Organisation.

  • It is important to note that the video was shared one day after Hamas attacked an area in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, it's biggest attack in decades.

  • We then looked for more information about the event by looking for details about the Imamia Student Organisation.

  • This led us to their Facebook page, where a post addressed the viral misinformation, clearly stating that the video showed "the Jashan Fateh-Hamas in October 2023 by ISO Karachi."

Team WebQoof could not independently verify the location or date when the video was taken, but we can confirm that it has no connection to the Bondi Beach terror attack.

What about the attacker?: The two gunmen who orchestrated the terror attack were father-son duo Naveed and Sajid Akram.

  • While Naveed is an Australian national and was born in Australia, his father, Sajid, was an Indian national, The Quint reported.

Conclusion: A video from 2023 is being shared with the falsely claim that it shows Pakistanis celebrating the terror attack at Bondi Beach.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)

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