Posts falsely claim old videos show people celebrating Bondi Beach attack
- Published on December 18, 2025 at 09:41
- 3 min read
- By Devesh MISHRA, Masroor GILANI, AFP India, AFP Pakistan
After gunmen fired on a crowd celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah at Sydney's Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025, videos spread in social media posts falsely claiming they showed people in the United Kingdom and Pakistan celebrating the deadly attack. The videos predate the shooting and depict a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Manchester in June and a fireworks display in Karachi organised after Hamas's attack on Israel.
"After the terrorist attack in Sydney, Palestinian supporters celebrated in Manchester. Is this community more dangerous than even monsters?" reads part of the Hindi-language caption of a Facebook video shared December 15.
The video shows several men whose faces are covered by keffiyehs chanting and waving a Palestinian flag on what appears to be a train platform.
Another video shared on X on the same day shows fireworks exploding above a building, watched by a crowd waving Pakistani and Palestinian flags.
Its caption reads: "Pakistanis are celebrating the Sydney attack with Hamas flags and Palestinian songs. This is the reality of Pakistan -- celebrating the death of innocent people."
The videos circulated elsewhere in similar Facebook and X posts after the Bondi Beach shooting on December 14 (archived link).
Gunmen killed 15 people and wounded dozens more in the attack, which authorities said was designed to sow panic among the nation's Jews.
Police shot and killed one of the alleged shooters, 50-year-old Sajid Akram. His 24-year-old son Naveed was also shot and remained in the hospital under police guard.
The circulating videos, however, predate the attack.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the first falsely shared video found the same footage circulated in an X post six months before the attack on June 8 (archived link).
The post was part of a thread about a demonstration in Manchester the previous day.
A subsequent keyword search led to a YouTube video about the June 7 demonstration, with a banner and placard matching those briefly seen in the falsely shared video (archived link).
A separate reverse image search using keyframes from the second falsely shared video also found the same footage was previously shared in an X post from October 8, 2023 (archived link).
"Celebrating the victory of HAMAS at Karachi, Pakistan. Organised by 'Imamia Student Organisation'," reads its caption.
The video also spread in an Urdu-language Facebook post on October 9, 2023, with a similar caption (archived link).
Ghazi Abbas, a spokesperson for the Karachi-based Imamia Student Organisation, told AFP the video is unrelated to the Sydney attack.
"This is an old video," Abbas said on December 17. "The video shows fireworks we organised in October 2023 at Numaish Chowrangi Karachi."
The organisation also released a statement on its Facebook page refuting the claims, saying the video showed a programme organised "under the banner of the 'Victory Celebration of Hamas'" (archived link).
Hamas's attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people and sparked a devastating two-year war in Gaza (archived link).
Israel's retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 70,373 people, according to figures from the territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
AFP has debunked a slew of misinformation stemming from the Bondi attack.
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