Does a video on social media show people climbing a wall at the Lebanon-Israel border in October 2023 in response to the Hamas-Israel conflict? No, that's not true: The footage is from a 2021 protest against Israeli raids on the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip. Videos from that time showed footage similar to what is seen in this video, and news outlets reported about the protest.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) posted on TikTok on October 13, 2023, under the title "situation at the Lebanon-Israel border." Its caption is:
The current situation at the Lebanon-Israel border #lebanon #israel vs #palestine #war #news
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Oct 13 17:38:32 2023 UTC)
A message posted on X (archived here), formerly known as Twitter, on May 16, 2021, shows the same footage. The caption reads, "Attack on titan❎ Attack on Israel❎ 'Lebanon at the Palestinian border' ....... #لبنانين_لن_أرحل #GazaUnderAttak #غزة_تحت_القضف #IsraelTerrorism #PalestineBleeding #FreePalestine"
Attack on titan❎ Attack on Israel❎
-- hargeisawi 🖤✨ (@ree_mii2002) May 16, 2021
" Lebanon at the Palestinian border"
.......#لبنانين_لن_أرحل#GazaUnderAttak#غزة_تحت_القضف#IsraelTerrorism #PalestineBleeding #FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/ZenkVeVtv7
Around the time of this post, several news outlets reported about men climbing the wall at the Lebanese border with Israel to protest Israeli airstrikes and bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Israel took these measures in May 2021 in response to Hamas rocket attacks. A video posted on CNN Arabia on May 17, 2021, with the headline, "Anger on the Lebanese-Israeli border due to the events in Gaza.. Watch what happened," shows similar footage but from a different angle. Its caption reads:
Dozens of Lebanese demonstrators, upset by the suffering in Gaza, stormed the wall along the Lebanese-Israeli border, cutting wires and throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers. Defiant young men climbed the more than 25-foot-high concrete wall to install Palestinian flags above observation points.
At the 1:58 mark in the CNN video, people are seen climbing an observation tower, which resembles a shot seen at 0:10 in the video posted on TikTok:
(Source: CNN Arabia screenshot taken on Fri Oct 13 17:40:12 2023 UTC)
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Oct 13 17:42:32 2023 UTC)
The CNN Arabia video reports that the people gathered on a hill in Lebanon "to mark 73 years since what they call a catastrophe" -- an apparent reference to the 1948 displacement of Palestinians from territory that became the state of Israel. To protest Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the participants made a "collective effort to scale the 25-foot concrete wall," the outlet reported.
The Iranian website Behdasht (archived here) published two photos of the event, with the caption, "Today's gathering of Lebanese citizens in Kafr Kala to support the Palestinian people + photo." Kafr Kala is a village in southern Lebanon that borders Israel. The images on Behdasht also show people along the wall and atop the observation tower; shots similar to the footage posted on TikTok.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims related to the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict can be read here.
