The Viral Video of the Israeli “Iron Dome” Is Unrelated to the Recent Iranian Attack

Photo: Illustration, Raskrinkavanje.ba On the night of April 13, 2024, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel. According to Israeli officials, most of the attack was intercepted. The assault resulted in minor damage to an airbase and one injury. This incident followed an air strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, which killed 13 people and for which Iran holds Israel responsible. The longstanding conflict between Iran and Israel involves various clandestine operations, with both sides attacking strategic targets without openly claiming responsibility. The BBC, in an article dated April 14, describes this as a “shadow war” that has persisted for years. More details on their historical relations can be found in reports by the BBC and Radio Free Europe. While the recent attack was widely reported in global media, some of the videos were misleadingly presented as current. Raskrinkavanje has previously documented similar misrepresentations in various military conflicts (1, 2, 3). In the early hours of April 14, 2024, a video spread on social networks with claims that it shows the operation of part of Israel’s defense system during an Iranian attack. The 43-second clip shows a part of the city and the sky above it with missiles and explosions. We found the first publication of this video along with the statement that it originates from April 2024 on the Telegram channel Novo doba starih ratnika, where it was published with the following description:

Israel currently

The ‘Iron Dome’ clash with Iranian drones allegedly launched from Lebanon and Syria.

The video with the same claims was posted on several other profiles and pages on different social networks (1, 2). Numerous articles from the domestic media about the current Iranian attack were also equipped with footage taken from this video (1, 2, 3). The articles do not state that the image shows this attack, but most of the image captions state that the frame was taken from the X social network.

What are the facts?

The ‘Iron Dome’ is a part of Israel’s air defense system, specializing in intercepting short-range rockets. Israel reports that this system’s effectiveness exceeds 90%. The video in question displays the logo of ‘The Telegraph,’ a media company based in the United Kingdom, alongside the name of the city, Ashkelon, and the social media account ‘Clash Report’ on platform X. ‘Clash Report‘ regularly posts various news items in brief, including photos and videos from different conflicts. Claims that the aforementioned recording shows the interception of an Iranian attack were also spread in other languages and were analyzed by various fact-checking platforms (1, 2). As pointed out in these analyses, the video is not connected to Iran or the April attack. Claims have circulated in multiple languages suggesting that the recording captures the interception of an Iranian attack. However, several fact-checking platforms have analyzed these claims and determined that the video is not related to Iran or the attack in April (1, 2). On the social network X and on The Telegraph’s YouTube channel, recordings from October 2023 have been posted (1, 2). The ‘Clash Report’ account uploaded the video on October 11, while The Telegraph posted it on YouTube the following day, October 12. Both publications state that the footage shows Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ intercepting rockets fired by Hamas over Ashkelon. Media reports from that time echo the video’s portrayal, noting that Hamas launched a significant number of rockets at Israel, heavily taxing the country’s defense system. Israeli journalist Hananya Naftali also shared the clip on his X account on October 11, commenting that ‘the Iron Dome had a busy day.’ This incident occurred during an escalation in the conflict between Hamas and Israel that began with a Hamas attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. This ongoing conflict had resulted in over 30,000 deaths in Gaza at the time of this analysis. Therefore, while the widely circulated footage does indeed show Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ in action, it is not related to the recent Iranian attack, nor was it recorded on April 14. We have determined that the video’s publication on the Telegram account ‘Novo doba starih ratnika,’ claiming it shows an Iranian attack, constitutes fake news. Similarly, other instances where the video is linked to these claims are also classified as the distribution of fake news. Media articles that discuss the Iranian attack on Israel and use a still from this video, without clarifying that it does not depict this incident, receive the rating manipulation of facts. (Author: Marija Ćosić, Raskrinkavanje.ba)