Syria funeral procession explosion footage falsely linked to Israel-Hamas conflict
- Published on October 25, 2024 at 05:36
- 4 min read
- By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India
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Warning: graphic footage
"Israel placed a time bomb in the dead body of a terrorist and gave it back to the Palestinians, the result is in front of you" read the Hindi-language caption of the Facebook post shared on August 31, 2024.
The video recirculated alongside a similar false claim on X and Facebook in October this year.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the world leaders who condemned the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas that triggered the war.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 people abducted that day, 97 are still being held in Gaza, and 34 have been declared dead by the Israeli army.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 42,847 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
However, the video dates back to reports of a car blast at a funeral procession in the Syrian town of Zamalka, 10km (six miles) east of the capital Damascus in June 2012.
Misrepresented footage
A reverse image on Google using keyframes found similar footage published on DailyMotion alongside the title "Zamalka - Syria: car bomb in a funeral procession 30/6/2012" (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the video published on DailyMotion (right):
The first 10 seconds were also uploaded by a YouTube channel called ZNNsyrian on June 30, 2012. This channel uses the logo that was shown in the top left-hand corner of the false posts (archived link here).
The Arabic-language title of the video translates to "Damascus countryside, Zamalka, the moment the funeral procession was bombed, 6/30/2012."
Below is a screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the YouTube video (right):
An AFP journalist based in Syria confirmed the chants in the video were in a Syrian dialect.
He also noted that the flag seen in the video is used by Syrian rebels opposing President Bashar al-Assad's regime, as shown in the screenshot comparison below (archived link):
According to an Al Jazeera report from July 1, 2012, "eighty people were killed and hundreds were injured in an explosion during a funeral procession for activist Abdul Hadi Al-Halabi in the Zamalka area of Damascus. Al-Halabi was killed during the military campaign in the Eastern Ghouta region" (archived link).
Similar visuals are also included in the report, although the full footage was not used.
AFP also reported on the attack and has debunked other misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war here (archived link).
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