Video game footage of tanks struck by missiles falsely linked to Israel-Hamas war

This article is more than one year old.
Published on November 8, 2023 at 10:50
3 min read
By AFP Pakistan

Thousands of civilians have been killed on both sides of the bloody war triggered when Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7. A video of tanks hit by missiles circulating on social media, however, is unrelated to the conflict. The footage, which has more than one million views in posts falsely linking it to the violence, was actually taken from a video game called Arma 3.

"A massive attack by Al-Qassam," reads a Facebook post sharing the footage, referring to the Ezzeddine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip.

The Urdu-language post adds: "Successful attack on Israeli tanks entering Gaza, destroyed several tanks."

The video, which has more than 1.4 million views, shows what appears to be tanks bursting into flames after they are struck by missiles.

Screenshot of a Facebook post sharing the false claim, taken on November 7, 2023

The video was widely shared in similar posts that falsely linked it to the Israel-Hamas war including here and here on X -- formerly known as Twitter -- and here, here and here on Facebook.

Israel launched a massive campaign in the Gaza Strip after Hamas militants staged its worst attack on October 7 that killed more than 1,400 people according to Israel, most of them civilians.

According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, Israel's relentless bombardment has killed more than 10,300 people, many of them children.

Calls for a halt in the fighting have gone unheard, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting there would be no pause until the more than 240 hostages seized by Hamas are freed.

However, the video is not related to the Israel-Hamas war.

'Military simulation'

Some social media users commented on posts sharing the footage that it was "fake" or "CGI".

One person commented on an X post with more than 430,000 views that the footage was taken from the Arma 3 video game.

A representative of Bohemia Interactive, the company which produces Arma 3, confirmed the video was taken from the game.

"The footage was produced in Arma 3 game" the company's public relations manager Pavel Krizka told AFP.

Arma 3, whose Czech-based developers promise "true combat game play in a massive military sandbox", allows players to create various battlefield scenarios using aircraft, tanks and a host of weapons.

Players often upload hours of gaming footage on platforms such as YouTube and researchers blame its easy availability for its misuse.

AFP has repeatedly debunked posts that have falsely depicted Arma 3 videos as actual footage of conflicts in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Myanmar.

Krizka added that the video appears to show Sa'hatra -- a version of Arma 3 modified by fans of the game rather than the developers.

According to the gaming discussion forum Stream Community, Sa'hatra is a "semi-fictional landscape inspired by real world data", featuring Middle Eastern terrain and architecture (archived link).

A keyword search found a longer version of the footage posted on a YouTube channel called PRO LRR, which says it uses Arma 3 to create "military simulation" (archived link).

The video description also says that the clip is "a virtual game simulation".

The footage in false posts starts at the 01:06 timestamp of PRO LRR's YouTube video (archived link).