No, video does not show an Israeli attack on a Hezbollah rocket launching site

What is the claim?

Multiple social media users have shared a video showing intense fire engulfing a hill-like area with the claim that it shows a rocket launching site belonging to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon being destroyed by Israeli air strikes.

Users also claimed this attack was carried out after the recent pager explosions in Lebanon and minutes before the organization was about to launch hundreds of rockets targeting Israel. 

One X (formerly Twitter) user shared the video and wrote, "Hezbollah had prepared 100s of rockets launchers, 1000 plus barrels in #Lebanon for attack on Israeli military & civilian targets. Just minutes before the launch, #Israel discovered the plot, struck, & successfully destroyed all the Hizb launch sites in massive IAF Air strikes." 

Archived versions of this and other similar posts are here, here, here, here, and here.

Screenshots of some of the social media posts. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

Some news outlets, including Republic TV and ABP Live, have also shared a screenshot from the viral video in their news reports, claiming it is from Israel's recent airstrikes on Lebanon. 

However, the viral video shows a fire in a landfill site at Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon, which predates the recent escalations.

What are the facts?

Through a reverse image search, we found the same footage shared by the Lebanese news outlet, Elsiyasa | السياسة on its X account. The video (archived here) was shared on September 13, 2024, with the caption, "Video shows the scale of the disaster ... this is what the fire scene looks like in the Burj Hammoud landfill." (Google translated from Arabic).

Elsiyasa also published a report on September 12, 2024, in which the same video is embedded, which indicated that the fire occurred in the landfill in Bourj Hammoud-Dora, which is part of Jdeideh municipality in Lebanon. 

Screenshot of the X post by Lebanese news outlet Elsiyasa. (Source: Elsiyasa/Modified by Logically Facts)

We also found a report by another Lebanese news outlet, An-Nahar, dated September 12, 2024, which corroborates that the viral video shows a fire at the Bourj Hammoud landfill. The report includes similar visuals of the fire taken from different angles. 

Additionally, we also found several reports of the fire incident dated September 12 and 13, 2024, by the outlet "This is Beirut News." In one of their reports, the Minister of Environment, Nasser Yassin stated that the cause of the fire was not known yet (examples archived here and here).

These reports conclusively show that this fire took place before the explosions of handheld pagers across Lebanon on September 17, 2024, and is unrelated to the recent escalation between Israel and Lebanon. 

The verdict

Social media users have shared a video of an intense fire, falsely claiming that it shows the aftermath of a recent Israeli airstrike on a rocket launching site. Instead, this video shows a fire at a landfill site at Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon.