A video going viral on social media (here, here, and here) shows a crowd surrounding a vehicle and shouting at a man inside while others are seen dragging another person nearby. The post claims this is from Lebanon, where locals are fighting against Hezbollah terrorists who are launching rockets at Israel. The post goes onto claim that the villagers fear Israeli airstrikes in response. This post is shared in the context of the ongoing Israel- and Hezbollah war. Let’s verify the claim through this article.
Claim: The video shows local people in Lebanon revolting against Hezbollah terrorists for firing rockets at Israel from their village.
Fact: The viral video dates back to 07 August 2021, when Druze villagers in Chouaya, part of Lebanon’s Hasbaya District, stopped Hezbollah members driving through with rockets in a truck. The villagers dragged the Hezbollah members out of their vehicles and blamed them for firing rockets from their village, which put the villagers in danger. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video led us to a video posted by Al Arabiya News on Facebook, dated 07 August 2021. The video’s description states that “Local Druze in the south of Lebanon drags Hezbollah members out of their vehicles in the town of Hasbaya after the Iran-backed group launched rocket attacks targeting Israel from nearby areas”. This confirmed that the viral video is not recent.
Taking a clue from the description, a Google keyword search led us to multiple reports about this incident (here and here). According to these reports, the Druze villagers in Chouaya, part of Lebanon’s Hasbaya District, stopped Hezbollah members who were driving through with rockets in a truck. The villagers blamed Hezbollah for firing rockets from their village, putting them in danger. The Lebanese Army arrested four people and took the rocket launchers from the truck.
We also found the same video on a Facebook post by ‘The Druze Page’, which described the same incident.
To sum up, an old 2021 video of Lebanese villagers stopping Hezbollah members from launching rockets is shared as recent.
