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False videos, pictures and information have sprung up on social media since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel last weekend which sparked retaliation strikes on the Gaza Strip.
Firework displays, excerpts from video games and clips posted months ago are among the false material seen and shared by millions of people on sites like X, formerly Twitter, and TikTok, purporting to show scenes from the conflict.
Social media platforms are under pressure from the UK and EU governments to combat misinformation and violent content on their platforms following the Hamas raid in Israel on Saturday.
But countless false videos purporting to show events in Israel and Gaza remain easily accessible across TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, with some clocking up tens of millions of views.
“It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” said Achiya Schatz, executive director of the Israeli fact-checking NGO Fake Reporter.
One of the most prolific videos we’ve seen falsely claiming to show events from the past few days is pictured below, showing fireworks in an urban area.
At the time of writing, a compilation of footage that uses this clip was the top liked video on TikTok when searching for the word “Gaza”.
The video has garnered 2.9 million likes and over 59 million views altogether.
It’s also been shared on other platforms. On X, multiple users posted the video falsely claiming it shows Israel bombing Gaza with phosphorus. Taken together, these posts have been viewed over a million times.
A reverse image search of the footage’s key frames, however, reveal that it had been shared on the internet before Saturday’s events unfolded.
One user posted it on TikTok on 2 October and another shared it on YouTube on 28 September – meaning the footage existed well before the conflict between Israel and Hamas started.
A series of very similar videos posted to X in June show celebrations in Algiers, Algeria after the win of the football team CR Belouzidad.
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