2014 image falsely shared as Egypt sending humanitarian aid to Gaza

What’s the claim?

Amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas, a photo of a convoy of white trucks on a highway is circulating on social media with a false narrative that the Egyptian president sent a humanitarian convoy to Gaza. An X (formerly Twitter) user shared the image with the caption, “In direct action against Israel, the Egyptian President orders a huge humanitarian convoy to Gaza, even after Israel has bombed the Rafah crossing. The Crossing will open when the convoy arrives. We will see if Israel really bombs the aid convoy, as they promised.” The post had gathered 25,000 views. Archive versions of the posts can be found here and here.

The image is also viral across other popular social media platforms. Archive versions of such posts on TikTok and Facebook can be found here, here, and here.

Screenshot of claims made online (Source: X/Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, an image from 2014 has been misattributed.

What we found

Through reverse image search, Logically Facts found the same image published in a report by The Guardian dated August 14, 2014. The headline read, “Russian convoy stops close to Ukraine border,” and the image was captioned, “The convoy of trucks travels from Voronezh towards Rostov-on-Don in Russia.” It was credited to Associated Press photographer Pavel Golovkin. Voronezh is a city located in south-western Russia, while Rostov-on-Don is in the south.

Taking a clue from this report, we also looked for the image on AP Photos. The photo description reads, “A convoy of white trucks with humanitarian aid moves from Voronezh towards Rostov-on-Don, Russia, early Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. Russia on Tuesday dispatched some hundreds of trucks, although only a small proportion were counted in this convoy, covered in white tarps and sprinkled with holy water on a mission to deliver aid to a rebel-held zone in eastern Ukraine.”

Screenshot of Associated Press image (Source: Screenshot/AP)

Several mainstream media outlets reported this event back in 2014. According to a report in The Guardian, a Russian convoy had reportedly arrived close to a crossing point that was then under the control of pro-Russian separatists. The convoy had more than 240 trucks. The trucks contained “much-needed aid for the besieged residents of Luhansk, who were trapped without water and electricity for 12 days,” the report added. 

According to BBC, in early 2014, there was an armed conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian military that left more than 2,000 people dead and caused more than 330,000 people to flee their homes. During the 2014 conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the Russian aid convoy sent to Luhansk was a controversial and significant event that was condemned by Western countries as a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.

After the October 2023 attack, Israel has threatened to bomb any Egyptian aid convoys entering Gaza, according to Anadolu Agency (AA), a Turkish news outlet. Israeli forces twice bombarded a road leading to an Egypt-Gaza border crossing, the Rafah crossing, on October 9 and 10, after the recent attack by Hamas on Israel, a report by Wall Street Journal said, noting that this forced “trucks carrying fuel and goods for the Palestinian territory to pull back.” Egypt is currently holding discussions with the U.S. to provide aid through its corridor with the Gaza Strip, reports Reuters, but has rejected moves to set up safe corridors for evacuating refugees.

The verdict

The image of the white truck convoy used in the viral post can be traced back to 2014. It is not related to the recent Hamas-Israel war. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.