Amid the escalating crisis in Palestine, a video is doing the rounds on Facebook with a claim that a ‘big explosion has happened in Israel’ where thick plumes of black smoke rising in the air can be seen.
However, The Quint’s WebQoof team found out that it is an old video and is unrelated to Israel. A reverse image search revealed that the video was of a huge fire caused due to a ruptured crude oil pipeline in Egypt that took place on 14 July 2020.
CLAIM
A video shared on a Facebook page called ‘Talent HUNT Kashmir’, which describes itself as an entertainment website and has over 97,000 followers, claimed that a big explosion happened in Israel. The video has over 5,000 views.
A Facebook fan page of Omar Abdullah has shared the video with the same claim and the post has over 44,000 views. An archived version can be viewed here.
The video is being circulated amid the heightened tension in the Gaza Strip.
You can see the archived version of the post here.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
WHAT WE FOUND
We ran a reverse image search on Yandex on one of the keyframes. This led us to an Instagram account of makan_il. The video was posted on the feed of the user on 16 July 2020. The caption, written in Arabic, translates to: 'a huge fire caused by an oil spill on the Cairo-Ismailia desert road.’ The video was same as that of the claim.
We then searched for news reports of the story using relevant keywords. This led us to a news report by Gulf News which read that on 14 July 2020, six people were injured as a huge fire had erupted due to a fracture in the pipeline running through the Cairo-Ismailia desert highway in Egypt, resulting in a spill.
Another report by Arab news confirmed the same.
We then searched the news of YouTube and saw the same visuals as that in the viral message. The Sun, VOA News, The Telegraph, CGTN, had used the visuals in their reports.
Clearly, an old video has been passed off as that from Israel in the tumultuous backdrop of the Palestine crisis.
The latest death toll in Gaza has risen to 113, including at least 31 children, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli authorities, meanwhile, claim that seven people were killed in Israel, including an Indian woman from Kerala.
Israeli forces have fired artillery and launched airstrikes targeting Palestine, amid constant rocket attacks from Gaza towards several Israeli towns, including Tel Aviv. The Israeli military said in a statement that air and ground forces were attacking the Hamas-run enclave, Reuters reported.
Hostilities have entered their fifth day Friday, with no signs of de-escalation, despite international calls for calm.
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