These photos were taken during multiple airstrikes in the Gaza Strip between 2019 and 2020
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on April 22, 2021 at 15:21
- 4 min read
- By Tendai DUBE, AFP South Africa
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The Facebook post, which has garnered more than 890 shares in South Africa and Turkey, shows four photos of various massive fires in and around a city.
“Hey world, Gaza getting bombed by Israel Now. For the second day in a row (sic),” reads the post’s caption published on April 17, 2021.
But some users in the comments noted that they hadn’t seen any of this footage in the news recently. One person even shared a screenshot of a 2019 news article that featured one of the same images in the misleading post.
Tracing the first photo
AFP Fact Check ran a reverse image search on each of the four pictures. The first photo was captured by AFP photographer Mahmud Hams on March 25, 2019.
“Fire and smoke billow above buildings in Gaza City during reported Israeli strikes in response to a rocket attack launched from the Palestinian Territories,” the caption reads.
Second image
The next photo in the Facebook post’s collage was taken on the same day by Ashraf Amra for Turkish state news agency Anadolu Agency.
“Smoke and flames rise from Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh's office in western Gaza after Israeli warplanes carry out a fresh wave of airstrikes across the blockaded Gaza Strip on March 25, 2019, in Gaza City, Gaza,” the caption says.
Third picture
The third image was taken by another AFP photographer, Said Khatib, on August 12, 2020.
“Smoke and flames rise after warplanes belonging to the Israeli army carried out airstrikes over the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah,” the caption reads.
Last picture
The last picture was also taken by Amra and shows an Israeli airstrike on Gaza on June 26, 2020, which was covered by AFP.
“Flame and smoke are seen during an Israeli airstrike, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on June 26, 2020
None of the images are related to the recent attacks.
April 2021 events
As reported by AFP, Israel's military announced on April 17, 2021 that it had conducted airstrikes against targets in the Gaza Strip following a rocket attack from the Palestinian region. This was the second such exchange in as many days.
In response to the rocket fired from Gaza at Israel earlier tonight, our forces just struck Hamas terror targets including a training facility, an anti-aircraft missile launcher post, a concrete production plant & terror tunnel infrastructure.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 16, 2021
Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza's oceanic and land border after the militant organisation Hamas seized control in 2007.
A fragile truce has spanned recent years, but sporadic attacks continue - with Palestinians firing rockets at Israel and the Jewish state responding with airstrikes on the coastal enclave.
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