Video shows Sudan violence, not Israel bombing Palestinian children
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 31, 2023 at 10:14
- Updated on November 1, 2023 at 02:39
- 3 min read
- By AFP Middle East & North Africa, AFP Hong Kong
- Translation and adaptation Tommy WANG
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WARNING: The video contained in this story contains graphic images.
"Israeli drones dropped bombs on a water collection point while a group of Palestinian children were fetching water," reads the simplified Chinese-language caption of a video shared here on X, formerly Twitter, on October 22.
The clip, filmed from above, appears to show an explosive being released from a height onto a crowd of people.
Hamas launched an unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7, triggering a war that has killed thousands of civilians on both sides.
The attack, the deadliest in Israel's history, saw gunmen storm across the border from Gaza, killing more than 1,400 people and taking more than 230 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel retaliated with a relentless bombardment that Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says has killed more than 8,000.
The video was shared in similar posts on TikTok, BitChute and video-sharing platform Kuaishou, and in multiple languages including English, Arabic, Bengali and Thai.
The clip, however, is not related to the Israel-Hamas conflict. It shows an attack by the Sudanese army on a fuel storage facility in the country's capital.
Fuel depot
Reverse image searches and keyword searches found several versions of the footage shared by media outlets who reported it showed Sudanese forces bombing a fuel tank used by a paramilitary group.
One was published to a Facebook page run by Al Jazeera Sudan on October 12, while another was uploaded to local site The News of Sudan (archived links here and here).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video used in the false post (left) and the footage uploaded to Facebook by Al Jazeera (right):
"A drone operated by Sudanese forces targets a fuel tank belonging to the Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum," reads the Arabic-language caption of the Al Jazeera video.
The Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group has been locked in an armed conflict with another faction of the Sudanese army since April, killing more than 9,000 people and displacing nearly six million.
The facility pictured in the video is a jet fuel depot near to Khartoum's airport that can be seen in satellite images on Google Maps.
Several features of the site match those seen in the clip with the false posts, most notably four white cylindrical towers. One of these towers appears discoloured in the X video.
Below is a screenshot comparison between the footage on X (left) and a satellite image of the site from Google Maps (right), with the towers and other matching features highlighted by AFP:
AFP has debunked other misinformation arising from the Israel-Hamas war in reports that are available here.
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