Seven year old images of Russia-Syria conflict shared as Israel attack on Palestine

In the midst of the present Israel-Palestine conflict, various social media accounts are worsening the situation by disseminating disinformation. They are circulating old images from Syria and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, wrongly linking them to the Israel-Palestine conflict. For example, an account with the display name “Palestine Online” on the X platform has shared a few images (Archived link) stating that Israeli forces are using internationally prohibited white phosphorus in heavily populated areas of northern Gaza.

Another handle @/GeertjeZahra (Archived link) also shared the same pictures with the claim that Israel is dropping white phosphorus on densely populated civilian residential areas in Gaza.

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Fact Check

During our fact-checking, we discovered that these images are old and have nothing to do with the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorists of Palestine. Upon running a Google reverse image, we discovered a video on the Scripps News YouTube channel that was uploaded seven years. The start of the video features the same visuals, and it is said to be from Syria, where Russian bombings were captured in June 2016.

The description of the video reads, “Is Russia using banned incendiary bombs in Syria? Russia’s RT news outlet released a video showing Russian jets in Syria. One of the jets is armed with two RBK-500 ZAB-2.5SM incendiary bombs. The bomb carries smaller incendiary charges and is designed to be dropped on flammable military targets. Human Rights Watch is worried the bombs are being used on civilians. “We have found evidence — and quite extensive evidence — that other types of incendiary weapons have been used, weapons containing, for example, as you mentioned, thermite,” Human Rights Watch’s Deputy Emergencies Director Ole Solvang told Al Jazeera.”

As a result, based on the facts provided, the claim that the images showing airstrikes using deadly white phosphorus are from the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict is misleading.

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