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As Israel and Iran continue to exchange fire for the seventh consecutive day, a disinformation war is simultaneously escalating on social platforms.
Euronews’ fact-checking team, Euroverify, has been analysing several viral videos emerging from Iran and Israel over recent days in order to verify their authenticity.
Our team found a significant number of old videos, unrelated to the current conflict, being falsely linked to the ongoing exchange of fire.
Many of them have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times and amplified across platforms, sowing confusion and misleading social media users.
Video of Tehran tunnels is from 2023
A clip circulating widely across X, TikTok and Instagram, and seen hundreds of thousands of times, claims to show Iranians dancing as they shelter in tunnels in the capital of Tehran.
Some social media users allege they are celebrating Israeli strikes on the city.
“Iranians stuck in traffic on their way to northern Iran start singing and dancing inside a tunnel to celebrate Israeli attacks on the Islamic regime,” one X user claims.
But a reverse image search using still shots from the clip shows that it was originally posted on Instagram as far back as September 2023.
Brawl is from a Georgian court, not Tel Aviv bunker
Another video claims to show people fighting among themselves while sheltering at a Tel Aviv bunker.
One X post with the video has been viewed over 700,000 times.
Yet, the footage in fact shows an altercation at a Georgian court, which was first published on X on June 12, two days before Israel launched the first attacks against Iran.
On that day, a 21-year-old Georgian protester was sentenced to four years and six months in prison for “hitting police officers with a stick” during demonstrations against the ruling government last November.
Georgian media reported that following his sentencing the court building “descended into chaos” with hundreds of supporters, including the Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, present to lend their support to the accused.
Video does not show Israelis fleeing square due to Iranian strikes
Another video purports to show a crowd of Israeli citizens fleeing from a square in Tel Aviv amid Iranian strikes.
A reverse image search shows that the scene dates from April this year, when a false security alert triggered a swift evacuation of a square in Tel Aviv during a memorial day event.
While the scene does show residents fleeing an Israeli square, it pre-dates the current conflict.
Video of 2003 US strike on Iraq used to mislead
Other social media users have shared a video claiming to show an explosion caused by an Iranian strike on Tel Aviv.
But the footage is astonishingly 22 years old, and shows a US strike on Iraq in 2003.
Similarly, recent footage showing an Israeli airstrike on Houthi targets in Yemen’s capital Sanaa has been circulating with false claims that it shows explosions in Israel caused by Iranian attacks.
