Unrelated old video from Syria shared as the recent visuals of a Hezbollah militant being killed by the Israeli army - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
October 26, 2023
A video is being shared as the visuals of a rejoicing Hezbollah militant moments before he was killed by the Israeli army. Multiple Facebook users shared it as a recent video showing the last smile of a Hezbollah terrorist. In the wake of Lebanon’s Hezbollah exchanging fire with Israeli forces in the midst of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, this video is going viral on social media. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Recent video showing the last moments of a Hezbollah militant who was killed by the Israeli army.
Fact: The video shared in the post is circulating on the internet at least since 2014. The video shows a Shiite militant who was killed in a rocket attack while threatening the resistors in northern Syria. The video has nothing to do with the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, we found that the video has been circulating on social media at least since 2014. A few old posts that shared the same video on YouTube and Facebook can be seen here, here, here, and here.
Lately, when an ‘X’ user shared this video claiming it is the visuals of Israeli forces hunting down rival army soldiers, a journalist from Ukraine responded to the tweet and said that the video is old and is from Syria. The journalist quoted- “These are Iraqi (Iranian backed) militias that fought on behalf of Assad getting shelled by the Free Syrian Army.”
This is Syria
These are Iraqi (Iranian backed) militias that fought on behalf of Assad getting shelled by the Free Syrian Army
Why do people keep lying about old footage from Syria? There is plenty of tragic war footage from the war in Gaza already. Don't steal Syria's history. https://t.co/GvysvsYaNu
When we searched for further sources of the video, a screen grab of the video was found in an article published by a news site on 10 December 2014. The news site reported that the video shows the tragic end of Shiite militants who came under rocket fire while issuing threats to the insurgents engaged in combat against Assad’s forces in Syria. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the video shared in the post is old and not related to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.
To sum it up, an unrelated old video from Syria was shared as the last moments of a Hezbollah militant before being killed by the Israeli army.