What was claimed
A picture shows a recent missile attack on Tel Aviv.
Our verdict
This is not true. The picture was taken in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel last year.
Picture supposedly showing recent Tel Aviv missile strike is actually of 2023 attack on Kiryat Shmona
A picture circulating on social media in recent days with claims it shows “Tel Aviv last night” was actually taken in November 2023 in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, nearly 150 kilometres away.
The image of vehicles burning has been shared on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) with the captions “Tel Aviv last night. If you burn us you will burn with us too” and “#Tel_Aviv_Is_Burning”.
Using Google Lens, Full Fact traced the image back to a report of a rocket attack on Kiryat Shmona in November 2023, for which the Jerusalem Post reported Hamas in neighbouring Lebanon had taken responsibility. It was also posted by a journalist on X and on Al-Jazeera’s Facebook page at the time.
There have been reports of recent attacks on Tel Aviv. On 13 November 2024 the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah said it had launched a drone attack on Tel Aviv's Hakirya military base. But news reports at the time said there were no indications that any drones reached central Israel or came near army headquarters.
Misleading images and videos are a common form of misinformation we see circulating online connected to the conflict in the Middle East.
For help spotting this kind of misinformation, see our guides on how to verify pictures and videos yourself.
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 false because the picture shows the aftermath of an attack in Kiryat Shmona in 2023, not Tel Aviv in 2024.