Did a viral post share authentic visuals of Iranian drones in the sky over Israel during Iran's aerial attack of April 13, 2024? No, that's not true: Those images and clips had been circulating on social media for at least half a day before the attack. At the time they were used with reports about an unrelated event involving flares being launched in a search operation.
The claim appeared in a post (saved here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on April 13, 2024. It opened:
the moment #Israel is under attack from Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran
wold war WWII expected
#Israel #Iran #Iranian #IranAttack #IraniansStandWithIsrael
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Sat Apr 13 22:36:33 2024 UTC)
The news about the beginning of Iran's attack on Israel broke minutes after 3:30 pm EST on April 13, 2024 (saved here.) In Israel, which is 7 hours ahead, it was also April 13, around 10:30 pm local time.
However, the video that was claimed as documentation of the Iranian attack had already been online on April 12, 2024 (saved here.)
So did another -- lighter -- image depicting what appears to be a flame in the sky over a building located next to a mountain. It was shared by at least two accounts on X here (saved here) and here (saved here) a day before the attack.
Iranian drones do not travel at the speed of light, nor can they time-travel. As initial reports (archived here) pointed out, they would need "hours" to travel roughly 1,100 miles (1,800 km) to reach Israel.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about international stories can be found here.
