6 months ago
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A video showing some women trying to escape a building under attack is viral online with the claim that it shows Israeli police attacking the women amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. BOOM found that the viral claims are misleading and the video is from 2021 when Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem.
The Israel-Hamas conflict that began on October 7 has killed more than 7,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry. Israel, on the other hand, has reported that at least 1,400 were killed as a result of the conflict. A recent Israeli airstrike in the Nuseirat refugee camp ended up killing four family members of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdou. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Dahdou called the strikes "a series of targeted attacks on children, women and civilians." According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 24 journalists have lost their lives while covering the conflict.
The 28-second clip starts with screams and shows Muslim women in burqas trying to take cover as a series of short explosions take place and the room is filled with smoke. Riot police can be seen inside the building later on.
The video is being shared on X with the caption, "WHEN THE ISRAELI IOF SHOT AT WOMEN AND CHILDREN. THIS WASN’T HAMAS."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
The clip is also circulating on Facebook.
Click here to view the post.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video is from 2021 and shows Israeli soldiers storming the Al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem.
We ran a reverse image search of some key frames from the viral video on Yandex and found a tweet by US-based outlet Inside Arabia shared on May 11, 2021. The caption read, "Graphic Footage - #Israeli occupying forces and settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in #Jerusalem this morning, in an act that can only be defined as terrorism.
The first five seconds of this video resembled the visuals in the viral video where the women are seen crouching down to take cover.
This video report also mentions the use of stun grenades, tear gas, and rubber-coated steel bullets by the Israeli forces.
Taking a cue from the caption and date, we ran a keyword search for the incident using 'Israeli soldiers attack women in Al-Aqsa mosque 2021' and found several videos published around the same time that matched the viral video.
This YouTube video shared by Middle East Eye on May 10, 2021, carried the title, 'Israeli forces attack Palestinian women inside Al-Aqsa Mosque' and bore a close resemblance to the viral video.
According to this, the video was shot on May 10 and shows explosions and attacks on the women inside the mosque.
Below is a comparison between the viral video and the Middle East Eye video:
The same video was also shared by Turkish news outlet TRT World. See here.
We also found a tweet by journalist Nir Hasson from Israel-based news outlet Haaretz who shared a video similar to the viral video on May 10, 2021. A rough translation of the caption from Hebrew to English reads, "Stun grenades also (used on) the women of the mosque."
Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque on May 10, 2021, and attacked civilians with rubber bullets and stun grenades. The attack on the mosque came after protests by Palestinians over potential eviction from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers. Hamas responded to this attack by launching air strikes into Israel from Gaza, and faced retaliatory strikes from Israel as well. While Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blamed Israel for the escalation, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would "not allow any extremists to destabilise the calm in Jerusalem."
Calls for peace were made globally, including that from the US State Department, the United Nations, and the European Union. According to Al Jazeera, the conflict left at least 248 Palestinians dead, including 66 children and 12 Israelis, including 2 children.
