Posts misrepresent Algeria fireworks footage as Israeli strikes on Gaza
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 11, 2023 at 19:38
- Updated on October 13, 2023 at 16:03
- 5 min read
- By Natalie WADE, AFP USA
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"Hell on Earth Gaza War is a bad thing for humanity. Innocent people do not deserve to live in this chaos. Stop the war!" says an October 8, 2023 post sharing the clip on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The footage shows a city cast in red light as projectiles take off from rooftops.
Other posts sharing the video circulated in multiple languages, including Spanish, German, Portuguese and Malay, after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
The unprecedented barrage included missile strikes and a wave of armed fighters who gunned down civilians and took around 150 hostages, including Israeli, dual national and foreign hostages. Israel formally declared war the following day, and its army has relentlessly pounded the Gaza Strip and deployed tens of thousands of soldiers around the Palestinian enclave and on its northern border with Lebanon. The conflict had killed thousands by October 11.
"Israel strikes Hamas targets in Gaza," says another X post sharing the red-hued clip alongside AFP photos of the conflict.
While the images in the post do show Israeli air strikes on October 8, the video does not.
Some iterations of the footage shared on X feature the TikTok username "ramiguerfi41." Although the clip does not appear on the user's profile in the United States (archived here), a keyword search indicates he did post it to the social media platform.
AFP reporters in Brazil confirmed the user originally posted the footage September 27, 2023 -- more than a week before Hamas's attack.
Clip from Algeria
Many X users replying to posts sharing the footage say it has been misrepresented.
"This video is from Algeria after Belouizdad won the soccer championship," says an October 8 post (archived here).
Keyword searches uncovered several videos resembling the clip (archived here and here). They show football fans launching fireworks and flares in the city of Algiers after CR Belouizdad won the Algerian championship in 2020 (archived here).
AFP geolocated the video by identifying landmarks in the clip, including a grassy roundabout and a billboard with a lit border.
The Israel-Hamas conflict has led to a torrent of misinformation on social media, including many misrepresented photos and videos. More of AFP's reporting is available here.
October 13, 2023 This article was updated in the 12th paragraph to clarify that both YouTube videos were taken in 2020.
October 12, 2023 The location metadata of this article was updated and "Palestine" was replaced with "Hamas" in the final paragraph.
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