Did Israel Defense Forces evacuate air bases near Gaza on October 7, 2023? No, that's not true: A video used to support the claim predates the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict. Neither the Israeli government nor credible news reports have substantiated the claim.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on October 7, 2023. The post included a video with a caption that read:
Breaking: Israeli Defence forces are now evacuating Air Bases near Gaza as thousands of #Hamas #terrorists flood into Israel. The situation is deteriorating rapidly. #IsraelUnderAttack #IsraelPalestinewar #Hamas
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Oct 11 14:35:36 2023 UTC)
The post uses the terms "Breaking" and "now" to indicate that the evacuation and the video were happening when the post was published. However, the video used in the post was published a few weeks before the post was made.
Lead Stories found a version of the video (archived here) published on YouTube on September 19, 2023. The YouTube video is titled "Ground Transport of F-16 Fighter Jets in Southern Israel 🛩️🇮🇱" with a description that reads:
Witness the unusual sight of F-16 fighter jets being transported by ground in southern Israel. Explore the significance of this military deployment and its implications for national defense. 🛩️🇮🇱
The YouTube description does not indicate when the video was made. However, it certainly was not during the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict, which began on October 7, 2023, after a series of surprise attacks on Israel by Hamas (archived here).
Lead Stories searched the Israel Defense Forces' website for "air base evacuation Gaza" and did not find any relevant results (archived here). We also reached out to Israel's Ministry of Defense for more information about the claim. We will update this story with any relevant response.
A Google News search of "October 7 2023 air base evacuation Gaza" (archived here) did not generate results that corroborated the claim.
Other Lead Stories articles on claims related to the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict are here.
