A video going viral on social media (here, here, and here) shows a group of men throwing stones at a building, with a stampede-like situation unfolding. The post claims it depicts a Muslim mob attacking a church in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 2024. Let’s verify the truth behind the video in this article.
Claim: A video shows a Muslim mob attacking a church in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 2024.
Fact: The viral video is not from Christmas Eve 2024, no such attack occurred on that date. The video dates back to 29 October 2022, when an attack took place at the Greek Orthodox Church of The Forefathers in Beit Sahour after a quarrel between some young men. A group of Muslim men threw stones at the church, injuring several people. Church leaders called on the Palestinian Authority to bring the assailants to trial. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We conducted an internet search using relevant keywords to verify the viral claim. However, we found no credible reports confirming that a Muslim mob attacked a church in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 2024 or that of any such attack. Given the incident’s significance, it would have attracted substantial media coverage, but no such reports were found.
A reverse image search of the keyframes from the viral video led us to an X post (archived) dated 31 October 2022, featuring the same viral video. The caption of the post stated that Christians were attacked in Bethlehem by a Palestinian mob while rehearsing for Christmas in a church.
Taking clues from the X post and after searching with relevant keywords, we found several news reports (here, here, and here) (archived here, here, and here) from October 2022 covering the same incident. According to these reports, the attack took place on 29 October 2022 at the Greek Orthodox Church of The Forefathers in Beit Sahour, following a quarrel between some young men. A group of Muslim men hurled stones at the church, injuring several people. Church leaders called on the Palestinian Authority to bring the assailants to trial.
We confirmed the location as the Holy Forefathers Greek Orthodox Church in Beit Sahour by using Google Maps Street View. The comparison is shown below.
To sum up, the viral video of an attack on Bethlehem Church is from October 2022, no attack occurred on Christmas Eve 2024.
