Old video from Israel misinterpreted as recent protests by migrants in Calais

Context

A video alleging that migrants in Calais, France, seeking entry into the U.K. threw rocks and stones to block a road is circulating on social media. The claim was made in the context of the Illegal Migration Bill 2022-23 introduced in the U.K. in March 2023, under which illegal migrants who travel to the U.K. will be detained before being sent to their home country or transported to another country. This Bill has invited criticism and legal action from politicians and human rights activists.

A Facebook user shared a video of people throwing rocks on a stretch of the highway with the claim, "These are the illegal migrant men in Calais that Jeremy Corbyn wants to bring to the UK. They are throwing rocks to stop trucks so that they can jump on board and sneak into Britain." 

However, the claim is false. The video is from 2019, and is from Israel, showing the Ethiopian community protesting after a teenager was shot dead by an Israeli police offer.

In Fact

Israeli news outlet Channel 13 TV News posted the same video on its Twitter account on July 2, 2019, with the following caption in Hebrew: "The protest of the Ethiopian community Demonstrators throw stones at the Gedera interchange." 

Israeli media outlet the Knesset Channel also uploaded a video on its Facebook page on July 3, 2019, in which the footage from the viral video is seen at the 00:20 timestamp. These reports show that the viral footage is from Israel, not from Calais, France.

According to the Times of Israel, an off-duty police officer shot dead Solomon Tekah, a 19-year-old Ethiopian, on July 1, 2019, near Kiryat Haim in Haifa, Israel. Large-scale riots followed around the country with thousands of Ethiopian protestors. who threw burning tires into the streets and obstructed roads. The Israeli police officer who shot Tekah was detained on murder allegations and eventually placed under house arrest, the report added.

The Verdict

News reports confirm that video footage from a protest in Israel in 2019 is being circulated with the false claim that it shows migrants obstructing roads at the Calais migrants camp. Therefore we have marked this claim as false.