2016 video from Syria shared as 'Al-Qassam group attacking Israel soldiers'

What’s being claimed?

A video of a man firing a missile followed by visuals of a tank exploding as people watch on has been shared on social media platforms claiming that the militant organization Al Qassam Brigade "targeted and killed" soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) amid the Israel-Hamas war.

An X (formerly Twitter) user shared the video with the caption, “Al Qassam Brigade hitting a group of ZIONISTS soldiers. Great.” The post had over 1,200,000 views and 18,000 likes. Archives of similar posts can be found here and here. The Al-Qassam brigades, or Al-Qassam fighters, form the military wing of Hamas.

Screenshot of the social media post circulating online. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the video is from Syria and was recorded in 2016. It is unrelated to the Israel-Hamas war.

Here are the facts

Through a reverse image search, we found the same video uploaded on the YouTube channel almarra today (archived here) on October 16, 2016. It was captioned in Arabic: “Watch...Jaysh al-Izza kills and wounds dozens with a TOW missile on the Maardas front in the Hama countryside.” 

The same video was also uploaded on the YouTube channel أورينت نيوز - Orient (archived here) on October 16, 2016. Orient TV was a Syrian news agency that shut down in November 2023. The description of the video states that Jaysh al-Izza, a rebel group in Syria, attacked and killed Iranian militants in a missile strike in Balad Maardas in the northern Hama countryside. An Orient News report that included the video stated that it showed Jaysh al-Izza, a rebel group, fighting Iranian militants who were fighting on behalf of Bashar Al Assad's forces in Balad Maardas in Syria. The rebel group also attacked two military tanks and captured some of the regime fighter groups.

Al-Jisr, a Syrian news channel, included a screenshot from the viral video in its report published on October 16, 2016, and corroborated these details

Iran's involvement in the Syria war

The ongoing Syrian Civil War started in 2011 between Syrian citizens and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, over economic issues, demanding an end to the ‘corrupt’ Assad regime. Russia, Iran, and Shia militants from Iran support Assad forces, and other countries, including Turkey and the U.S., support Syrian rebels in the ongoing war. 

The verdict

A seven-year-old video of a Syrian rebel group attacking a militant group supporting Bashar Al Assad's force in Syria has been falsely linked to the Israel-Hamas war. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.