Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict that began in October 2023, a video depicting a massive crowd on the streets is circulating widely on social media. The claim accompanying the video suggests that it shows Israelis taking to the streets to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Visuals of Israelis protesting against the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war against Palestine.
Fact: The visuals are from a protest in Tel Aviv in March 2023, where Israelis were demonstrating against a controversial plan by their government to reform the judiciary and does now show any recent protest against the war. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We discovered that the viral video on Facebook was the video of TV9 Bharatvarsh, uploaded on its YouTube channel on 15 October 2023. However, a reverse image search of the visuals used in TV9’s video revealed that they were originally from March 2023. These visuals were uploaded on ‘The Telegraph’ YouTube channel. The description suggests that it depicts half a million protesters in Tel Aviv rallying against a controversial plan to reform the judiciary on 11 March 2023, as the Israeli government continued to push forward with the plan. Media reports about these protests at that time can be seen here and here.
Reportedly, there were some protests in Israel demanding assistance in locating hostages taken by Hamas and expressing dissatisfaction with Benjamin Netanyahu’s crisis management. However, as stated earlier, the video is outdated and does not reflect the current situation in Israel.
To sum it up, an old video from March 2023 is being shared as if it shows hundreds of thousands of Israelis protesting against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
