Video of ship fire misrepresented as Hezbollah attack on Israeli port

Published on November 13, 2024 at 20:48
5 min read
By Daniel GALGANO, AFP USA

As the Israeli armed forces and Hezbollah trade fire over the Lebanon border, social media users are falsely claiming a video shows the aftermath of a November 2024 attack by the Shiite militant group on a ship docked in Haifa. The clip was filmed in the port city in June, and officials told local media the flames came from an engine fire, not a missile strike.

"BREAKING: Hezbollah has officially started striking the Israeli port of Haifa for the first time," says a November 11 X post with thousands of interactions.

Screenshot from X taken November 12, 2024

The same claim and footage have circulated elsewhere on X, Instagram, TikTok and other websites since June, before the Israel-Hezbollah conflict intensified. Many of the posts credit the Telegram account Middle East Spectator, which published leaked US intelligence documents detailing a potential Israeli attack on Iran in October, prompting an FBI inquiry.

Following Hamas's unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Hezbollah began sporadic cross-border strikes in support of its Palestinian ally.

After nearly a year of war in Gaza, Israel shifted its focus to Lebanon in September 2024, vowing to fight Hezbollah to secure its northern border. The ensuing near-daily exchange of fire forced tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee their homes.

Haifa is on the frontlines of the conflict, with Hezbollah rocket attacks routinely falling in and around the northern port city. Hezbollah militants on November 6 launched a missile barrage at an Israeli naval base northwest of Haifa, but that facility is separate from the one where commercial ships dock.

A keyword search for the name of the ship in the video, the YAF Horizon, reveals the footage was taken in June when the Turkish-owned vessel's engine room caught fire.

Screenshot from TikTok taken November 12, 2024, with elements highlighted by AFP

In the months before the fire, inspectors in Turkey, Georgia and France cited dozens of fire safety, workplace cleanliness and emergency preparedness-related deficiencies on the YAF Horizon, according to data compiled by Equasis, a service developed by the European Commission and the French Maritime Administration to disseminate public shipping information.

This screenshot from Equasis taken November 13, 2024 shows the results of a 2023 inspection of the YAF Horizon in Çanakkale, Turkey

Haifa-based Deputy Assistant Fire Commissioner Moshe Chiko Levy told local media the fire had broken out in the ship's second-floor engine room.

"We're talking about five tons of burning diesel fuel, there is no access for the fire brigade. Currently, there is no one on board, so there is no danger to human life. Right now, the firefighting efforts are focused on trying to save the ship," he told Tel Aviv-based news website Walla! in June.

No major Israeli media outlets covered an explosion on a ship docked in Haifa on November 11.

The maritime tracker Marine Traffic shows YAF Horizon traveled to Yalova, Turkey in July after the fire and had not left port since then as of November 13.