A Facebook (FB) page and TikTok account misappropriated clips of Russian soldiers to falsely depict scenes from the war between Israel and Hamas.
The original footage was published by the Russian Ministry of Defence months before the conflict escalated in October.
In the first clip captioned “Israel VS Palestine war video,” published on FB on Oct. 30, soldiers can be seen loading and firing missiles into a multiple rocket launcher. A letter Z could be seen on the launcher’s door, symbolizing Russia’s za pobedu (for victory) slogan in its war against Ukraine.
Reverse image search traced a copy of the video to a post on June 9 on Russian video platform RUTUBE.
Note: Click on the photo to view its original source.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, the video showed soldiers firing rockets in the direction of Kupyansk, Ukraine, as part of a special military operation.
The second clip, posted on Nov. 3, was captioned “ISRAEL ROCKET LAUNCH VIDEO”.
Reverse image search traced the original again to a Russian source: The country’s ministry of defense, which published it on June 2, 2022. A copy carried by British broadsheet The Sun described the clip as showing S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems supposedly taking out Ukranian drones mid-air.
Note: Click on the photo to view its original source.
Published by FB page Save the Palestine (created on Oct. 16 under the name AniBright), the two videos garnered a total of 4.08 million interactions. Netizens of various nationalities, including Filipinos, engaged with the untrue posts. A netizen also reuploaded the second video on TikTok.
The false videos appeared days after Israel launched more airstrikes across the Gaza Strip surged and Hamas retaliated with a rocket.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
