An October 2023 video of protesters tearing an Israeli flag in Pakistan is falsely shared as an April 2025 protest tearing Israeli-made sanitary napkins
Pakistan has seen a rise in violent protests targeting U.S.-affiliated brands, particularly KFC, in response to growing anger over Israel’s military operations in Gaza in recent times. These demonstrations, driven by strong anti-Israel and anti-American sentiments, have led to attacks on KFC outlets in several major cities, including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Mirpur, and Sukkur. Amidst this unrest, a video circulating on social media (here, here, and here) claims to show protestors in Pakistan biting and tearing apart sanitary napkins allegedly manufactured in Israel. Let’s verify the claim made in the post through this article.
Claim: The video shows people in Pakistan tearing Israel-manufactured sanitary napkins with their teeth during a protest in April 2025 over the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Fact: The video does not show people in Pakistan tearing Israeli-manufactured sanitary napkins. It depicts protesters tearing an Israeli flag during a demonstration in October 2023. The protest, which was part of a series of rallies in support of Palestinians, occurred in several cities, including Karachi and Islamabad. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
A reverse image search of the keyframes from the viral video led us to several social media posts (here, here, and here) featuring the video from October 2023. These posts confirmed that the viral video predates the April 2025 protest. One of the posts mentioned that in Pakistan, protesters were showing their opposition to Israel by attempting to tear and eat the Israeli flag.
Building on this, we used the clues from the social media post and conducted a search using relevant keywords. This led us to an X-post (archived) by the media outlet BigBreakingWire, dated 14 October 2023. The post featured the same video and stated that it shows people in Pakistan tearing down the Israeli flag with their teeth during a protest.
We also came across a report by JÖNTÜRK, a Turkish media outlet. According to the report, Pakistan’s unusual protest against Israel involved an act of eating and swallowing. The report also featured a video that clearly shows they are tearing a flag, not a sanitary napkin packet, as claimed.
According to reports (here, here, and here), in October 2023, protests were held in major cities, including Karachi, Islamabad, and Peshawar, to express solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas conflict. These demonstrations were organised by religious and political groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), who called for an immediate end to Israeli airstrikes and the blockade on Gaza.
To sum up, an October 2023 video of protesters tearing an Israeli flag in Pakistan is falsely shared as an April 2025 protest tearing Israeli-made sanitary napkins.