What was claimed
A video of a huge fire in Hebron, West Bank, was filmed at the end of April.
Our verdict
This video dates back to February, and shows a large fire at a plastics factory in the West Bank.
A video of a huge fire in Hebron, West Bank, was filmed at the end of April.
This video dates back to February, and shows a large fire at a plastics factory in the West Bank.
A post liked more than a thousand times on Threads claims that a video of a large fire in the West Bank was filmed in late April.
The video, which appears to have been taken at some distance from the fire, shows a huge blaze in the middle of a built-up area.
Posted on 26 April, the caption claims: “Hebron in the West Bank tonight”. It adds, “H@mas are not in the West Bank”, possibly implying the fire was a result of Israeli action following the 7 October attacks on the country by Hamas.
But this video first appeared online two months earlier, and appears to show a fire at a plastics factory in Hebron that broke out on 27 February.
The post shared on Threads is watermarked with the handle of an Instagram account, which posted the video, alongside several others, it said showed the fire on the day it broke out.
Misleading images and videos are some of the most common misinformation we see online, and become particularly widespread at times of a major news story such as the current conflict in the Middle East.
We’ve recently checked several posts wrongly claiming to show events related to the conflict, including a video of people hiding from bombs and an image of the Eiffel tower lit in the colours of the Israeli flag, both of which apparently happened during or after Iran’s strikes on Israel on 13 April, but were actually captured in 2023.
It’s important to check what you’re sharing actually shows what it claims to—our guides on identifying misleading images and videos may help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because the fire did not occur at the end of April.
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
Bad information ruins lives. It promotes hate, damages people’s health, and hurts democracy. You deserve better.