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 bus depot in the Israeli city of Safed under unexplained circumstances.
The video appeared in an article published by Press TV, an Iranian agency that publishes in English, on October 3, 2024, under the headline "Tel Aviv on fire after being hit by kamikaze drone barrage" (archived here). The article said:
A barrage of kamikaze drones has targeted Tel Aviv in the occupied Palestinian territories, setting off sirens across the coastal city and causing a large fire.
The aircraft struck the city early on Thursday, activating the Israeli regime's missile systems, which allegedly intercepted four of the unmanned vehicles.
This is what the article looked like on Press TV's website at the time of the writing of this fact check:
(Source: Press TV screenshot taken on Thur Oct 3 14:44:55 2024 UTC)
The 10-second video embedded in Press TV's article does not show the aftermath of an Iranian kamikaze drone strike in Tel Aviv. The clip also appeared at the 0:13 mark of a video posted on Al-Jazeera's YouTube channel on June 11, 2022. That video was titled "18 buses go up in flames in the city of Safed in the occupied Galilee" (translation from Arabic by DeepL -- archived here). The description read (as translated by DeepL -- archived here):
Eighteen passenger buses caught fire in a fire that broke out early this morning in the parking lot of the central station in the city of Safed in the occupied Galilee, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA) said.
Videos published by local media showed the charred passenger buses, while the Broadcasting Authority announced that the circumstances of the fire are being investigated.
Authorities suspected that the incident was an arson attack by an organized criminal gang, according to a report by Israeli news outlet ynet, published on June 11, 2022 (archived here). Ynet's article featured the same video as appeared on Al-Jazeera's YouTube page and in Press TV's piece.
At the time of writing, it was not clear whether Iranian drones had actually attacked Tel Aviv on October 3, 2024. Citing the French news agency AFP (archived here), news outlet Al-Arabiya carried a report that Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen had claimed responsibility for a drone strike on Tel Aviv that day. Israeli defense officials could not confirm the report, the article said.
Lead Stories asked the Israeli Defense Forces for comment about PressTV's claim of an Iranian drone strike on Tel Aviv and will update this fact check if the Israeli Defense Forces reply.
Iran fired some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, 2024, but most of them were destroyed before they reached their targets, according to a statement on the U.S. Department of Defense's website (archived here). The attack followed Israel's strikes on Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon in late September 2024.
More Lead Stories fact checks concerning Israel can be found here.
