Unrelated blast, chaos videos misrepresented as Israel-Iran crisis

Published on June 18, 2025 at 09:18
3 min read
By Jan Cuyco, AFP Philippines

After Israel's surprise bombardment of Iranian nuclear and military sites on June 13, 2025, prompting a counter-attack by Iran, old clips of a fireball explosion and people running away from a stadium surfaced in social media posts that falsely claimed they depict the impact of the strikes. But the compilation shows a port explosion in Lebanon and panicked fans at a US national cheerleading competition.

"Israel vs Iran today 13/06/2025," reads text superimposed on a Facebook video shared June 15, 2025. It shows a massive blast filmed from the sea and then cuts to a clip of people running across an open area.

Screenshot of the false post, taken on June 16, 2025

After decades of enmity and a prolonged shadow war, Israel said its surprise air campaign was aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons -- an ambition Tehran denies (archived link).

At least 24 people have been killed in Israel and hundreds wounded, according to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

Iran said June 15 that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians. It has not issued an updated toll since then.

Similar posts surfaced on Facebook and YouTube but neither clip depicts the Israel-Iran conflict.

Beirut port blast

A reverse image search on Google found the first footage published by video licencing agency ViralHog on August 14, 2020 (archived link).

"Jet Skiers Capture Shockwave from Beirut," says the caption to the clip which has been mirrored in the false posts.

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and video published by ViralHog

A catastrophic blast on August 4, 2020 -- one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history -- devastated large parts of Lebanon's capital Beirut, killing more than 220 people and injuring over 6,500 (archived link).

It was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been unsafely stored for years after arriving by ship.

AFP previously debunked posts that have misrepresented the clip as showing a scene from the Gaza war.

Similar clips of the port blast captured from the water were posted by Canadian news outlet Global News and American broadcaster Voice of America (archived here and here).

Cheerleading chaos

Further reverse searches found the second video in a March 1, 2025 report from American news channel NBC 5 about people running away from the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas following reports of an active shooter (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and video from NBC 5

Around 58,000 people were attending a cheer competition when the chaotic evacuation occurred, CBS News separately reported. Authorities said there was no active shooter (archived link).

AFP was able to confirm the location of the video by comparing it with Google Maps satellite imagery of the parking lot near the convention centre (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and corresponding Google Map satellite view

AFP has debunked more misinformation about the Israel-Iran conflict here.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail