Video of quake damage in Turkey falsely shared as war impact in Israel
- Published on March 6, 2026 at 09:17
- 2 min read
- By AFP Middle East & North Africa
- Translation and adaptation Jeff LI, Rasheek MUJIB, AFP Hong Kong, AFP Bangladesh
Iran has vowed retribution and barraged Israel with missiles after it attacked the Islamic republic with the United States on February 28, 2026, but a clip of buildings reduced to rubble circulating online does not show the aftermath of a strike on Tel Aviv. The footage was shot in southeastern Turkey and shows the devastation after a deadly earthquake struck the region in February 2023.
The 11-second Facebook reel showing collapsed buildings was shared on March 4, 2026 with a simplified Chinese caption that says: "Iran took revenge."
"Tel Aviv has become a ghost town. Look at the massive scale of destruction," it continues.
Iran has vowed retribution for a joint US-Israel attack on February 28 that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sending missile barrages towards Israeli cities that have killed several people and caused a blaze at a residential building in Tel Aviv (archived here and here).
The Islamic republic has also retaliated against targets in neighbouring Gulf countries that host US interests, including Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, Israel said the war had entered a "new phase" and it would "further dismantle the regime and its military capabilities".
The video of damaged buildings circulated across Facebook and Instagram in various languages alongside the claim it shows the war's impact on Tel Aviv.
But the footage circulated online years before the war in Iran and shows the destruction after a major quake in Turkey.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared footage found the same video shared by the official Facebook account of Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah on February 6, 2023 (archived link).
The post says it shows earthquake damage in Kahramanmaras.
The region was the epicentre of a massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and parts of Syria on February 6, 2023, killing more than 50,000 people in both countries and flattening entire cities (archived here and here).
Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency shared aerial footage of the destruction at the same location in a Facebook post on February 6, 2025, the second anniversary of the quake (archived link).
The two buildings still standing at the start of the circulating clip can be seen on Google Street View imagery of Trabzon Boulevard in Kahramanmaras (archived link).
AFP has debunked other misinformation related to the Iran war.
Copyright © AFP 2017-2026. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
