Early on June 13, Israel carried out a series of massive airstrikes on Iran. It reportedly targeted sites linked to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and killed several top nuclear scientists and military leaders.
In its aftermath, a video allegedly showing a barrage of missiles hitting the Iranian capital, Tehran, was widely shared online. Sharing this video, a Facebook user wrote, “Israel is currently targeting residential addresses of top political and military figures in Tehran, as well as Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. National emergency declared in Israel.”
India Today Fact Check found that, contrary to the claims, this old video shows an Iranian missile attack on Israel’s Nevatim airbase.
OUR PROBE
Reverse-searching keyframes from the viral clip led us to the same video uploaded to DD India’s YouTube channel on October 2, 2024. The video was titled: “Iranian missiles targeting the Nevatim airbase in the Negev Desert.” This means that the video is not recent at all.
This video was also shared on Facebook on October 2, 2024, by All India Radio News — its caption calling this Iran’s massive missile attack on Israel. As per the post, the attack was in response to the killings of senior Hezbollah and Hamas officials. We also found this video on several Iranian websites, which noted this was the country’s attack on Israel’s Nevatim air Base.
Turkish public broadcaster TRT World shared a similar clip on its YouTube channel on October 1, 2024. The video’s description stated: “Iranian missiles have struck Israel’s Nevatim Airbase near Beersheva (Bir al-Sabi) after Tehran launched a salvo of rockets in retaliation for Israel’s raids in Lebanon.”
We found several news reports published in October 2024 about Iran targeting key Israeli military facilities, including their strategically important Nevatim Airbase. Despite the strikes, Israel said the targeted airbases remained fully operational as no aircraft, weapons, or personnel were hit.
Notably, while visuals of the recent Israeli attack on Iran have also surfaced online, we did not find any clips that matched the viral video.
Thus, it’s clear that the viral video does not show Israel’s recent attack on Iran.
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