Old Gaza blast picture falsely linked to Iran-Israel war
- Published on July 4, 2025 at 07:03
- Updated on July 4, 2025 at 11:03
- 2 min read
- By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India
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"Israel's situation," reads Hindi-language text overlaid to a picture of a giant blast, shared June 24, 2025 on Facebook. Its caption includes a hashtag that says, "iran attack on israel".
The most intense confrontation between the Middle East adversaries erupted on June 13, when Israel launched a bombing campaign in Iran that killed top military commanders and scientists linked to its nuclear programme (archived link).
Tehran responded with ballistic missile attacks on Israeli cities.
The United States subsequently joined its ally Israel's military campaign against Iran, bombing three key facilities used for Tehran's atomic program.
A ceasefire announced on June 24 ended the war.
Similar posts on Facebook and X also shared the picture but a reverse image search on Google traced it to EPA Images (archived link).
"Smoke rises from Tuffah neighbourhood after Israeli air strikes in the east of Gaza City, 29 July 2014," reads the photo's caption.
Keyword searches found similar pictures were also published by AFP and The Washington Post (archived link).
At the time, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, with the stated goal of stopping Palestinian rocket fire and destroying tunnels used by militants to infiltrate Israel (archived link).
The seven-week conflict killed 2,251 Palestinians and 74 Israelis, including 68 soldiers.
AFP has debunked more misinformation related to the Iran-Israel war here.
July 4, 2025 Updated to add links in paragraph 10
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