Old Canada clip falsely linked to protests against Gaza war
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on January 8, 2024 at 07:27
- 4 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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"The Israeli Ambassador Chased Away by Americans," reads Indonesian-language text superimposed on a TikTok video uploaded on October 26, 2023.
The text, which suggests the incident happened in the United States, goes on to say: "American People Love Palestine But Their President Has Evil Heart".
The video shows a white car retreating from a crowd of protesters carrying Palestinian flags and has been viewed more than a million times.
Thousands of protesters have joined rallies in cities across the United States calling for a ceasefire in Gaza amid Israel's relentless bombing campaign, with some slamming US President Joe Biden's support for Washington's top ally in the Middle East.
The war began on October 7, 2023 when Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack and killed about 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The militants also took around 250 hostages that day, more than half of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel.
Four months on, Israel's retaliatory air strikes and ground invasion have reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed more than 22,800 people -- most of them women and children -- according to the Hamas-run health ministry on January 7, 2024.
The video has been viewed more than 6.5 million times after it was shared elsewhere on TikTok here and here, as well as on Instagram, Facebook and video-sharing app SnackVideo.
But the clip predates the Gaza war by over two years.
Montreal protest
A reverse image search on Google, using a keyframe from the video, found it corresponds to longer footage uploaded by a YouTube user based in Montreal, Canada, on May 11, 2021 (archived link).
According to the video's description, it was taken during a pro-Palestinian protest in Montreal on May 10, 2021.
"When the man in the white Mercedes waved an Israeli flag, the crowd of Palestinian protesters became angry," it says. "Halfway into the video, the man in the car almost launched his car towards the crowd."
The start of the video shared in the false posts matches with the 2:29 mark of the YouTube video.
Below are screenshot comparisons of the video in the false post (left) and the YouTube video from 2021 (right):
At the 1:06 mark of the YouTube video, the words "Westmount Square" can be seen on a building in the background. The building remains in shot for the portion of the video used in the false posts.
A search on Google Maps shows the building is located in Westmount, in Montreal (archived link).
Below are screenshot comparisons of the video in the false post (left) and images of the Google Maps Street View (right), with corresponding features marked by AFP:
Pro-Palestinian groups announced the plan to carry out the "Stand with Palestinians in Jerusalem" protest on May 10, 2021 in Westmount (archived link). They rallied amid violence stemming from a long-running legal effort by Jewish settler groups to evict Palestinian families from their homes in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
"No Israeli Head of Mission was involved in this event," Paul Hirschson, the Israeli consul general in Montreal, told AFP on January 5, 2024 (archived link).
Moreover, when the protest took place in May 2021, the post of Israel's ambassador to Canada had been vacant since Nimrod Barkan's term ended in November 2019 (archived link).
His successor was named in July 2021, and it was only in December 2021 that Ronen Hoffman started his first day as Israel's top envoy in Ottawa (archived links here and here).
The licence number of a diplomat's vehicle is started with a CC or CD prefix, according to SAAQ, an agency that regulates license plates in Quebec.
But, the plate number of the white car in the video starts with "N58", as seen at the 49-second mark of the original video.
As of January 8, 2024, there have been no reports about protesters in the United States chasing away Israel's ambassador to the country.
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