Lebanon And Hezbollah

Did a video shared widely in June 2025 show a real military base under Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, Israel? No, that's not true: The computer-generated animation began as a satirical reference to earlier Israeli claims about the hiding of missiles in civilian contexts. The hospital was hit by an Iranian missile strike on June 19. The claim appeared in…

Did the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees put a black band across its profile image on X to grieve the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar? No, that's not true: The band was on the image for months before Sinwar's death, according to archived pages of the account and to the agency. An agency spokesperson told…

Does a viral video show Israeli troops being attacked by Hezbollah in Lebanon? No, that's not true: The same footage has been online since 2017. The video's earliest version showed a logo of a Syrian rebel group. It was published with explicit references to the situation in Syria. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known…

Does a viral video show an Israeli tank destroyed "by the resistance's fire" in Lebanon in October 2024? No, that's not true: The claim recycled footage of a Russian tank in Ukraine that emerged on social media nearly a year before the start of Israel's September 30, 2024, ground operation in Lebanon. Ukrainian media initially posted the footage on October…

Does a video on an Iranian news website show a blaze that broke out in Tel Aviv, Israel, following an Iranian drone strike in October 2024? No, that's not true: The same footage appeared in June 2022 on a YouTube channel belonging to news outlet Al-Jazeera. The description from 2022 says it shows a fire that broke out at a…

Did the hospital of the American University in Beirut switch its paging system because it had advance knowledge of the September 2024 Lebanon pager bombings? No, that's not true: The American University of Beirut Medical Center said it "categorically denies these baseless allegations." The hospital's official X account stated that the paging system infrastructure was upgraded in April 2024 and…

Does a video show Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, crying after an Israeli airstrike that occurred in Beirut on July 28, 2024? No, that's not true: Although the video does show Nasrallah crying, the video predates the Israeli airstrike. In the footage Nasrallah was making a speech about Ashura, an important commemorative day in Shia…

Was the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon on fire on October 18, 2023? No, that's not true: According to the caption of a photo from an image hosting site, this fire happened outside the security gates of the embassy. The embassy said in an October 18, 2023, statement it was open for business. The claim appeared on X, formerly Twitter, on…

Does a video being shared on social media show a Hamas military wing spokesperson thanking Iran for its support in October 2023, following the militant group's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023? No, that's not true: The video does show Abu Obaidah, a representative for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas,…

Was the massive blast in Beirut a nuclear explosion? No, that's not true: A leading arms control expert, referencing images of the blast that hit on August 4, 2020, says "there are literally none of the phenomena one sees with a nuclear explosion." Lebanese Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi said the explosion was apparently caused by ammonium nitrate stored at the…