Old video from Baghdad shared as recent Israeli strike on Lebanon

What is the claim?

Social media users have shared a video of a series of explosions, falsely claiming it shows an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon from September 2024. The video shows different buildings being bombed and an ambulance racing through a street as a voiceover, at the 22-second mark, says: "Beneath all of this, emergency teams raced across the city…"

A verified user on X (formerly Twitter), Dr. Eli David, shared the post with the caption, "Force is the only language understood and respected in Middle East. Yesterday Israel regained the respect it lost on October 7 [sic]." This post was reshared over 3,500 times and garnered around 25,000 likes. Similar claims using the video and hashtags, including #Hezbollah and #Lebanon, can be viewed here, here, and here.

Social media posts claiming to share a video of Israel striking Lebanon. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

This claim comes after Israel's September 27, 2024, airstrike on Lebanon's capital, Beirut, that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and left at least 6 dead and around 91 injured.

However, we found the video to be from a U.S. airstrike on Baghdad, Iraq, in 2003. It is unrelated to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Lebanon.

What we found

A reverse image search of keyframes from the video led us to this video (archived here) in an article uploaded by Turkish media outlet OdaTV dated October 2022. The same English voiceover from the viral video is audible at the 22-second mark in the OdaTV video.

Another video (archived here) with matching visuals was uploaded to British media outlet ITN's YouTube channel.

The building at the 30-second mark in the viral clip matches the building at the 1:24 mark in the ITN video. The anchor explains the building is one of Saddam Hussein's Presidential Palaces. We found the same building on fire, identified as Hussein's palace, in the Reuters Archive from March 21, 2003 (archived here) as well.

Screenshot of the building in the claim video and from the ITN video. (Source: X/ITN)

The tall structure in the claim at the 52-second mark can be seen at the 34-second mark in the ITN video is the Baghdad Clock.

Screenshot of the Baghdad Clock in the claim video (left) and a photo of the structure from the ITN video (right). (Source: X/ITN/Screenshots)

The building on fire at the 1:34 mark in the claim video matches this structure seen in a March 21, 2003 image by Reuters (archived here). Getty Images identified it as a "building in the Iraqi presidential compound in Baghdad" (archived here). BBC News also shared this image in its report published on March 19, 2023.

A screenshot of the building is from a viral video and a BBC News image. (Source: X/BBC News)

YouTube videos uploaded by CNN (archived here) and Al Jazeera (archived here) contain frames that match the claim video. These videos report on the Iraq war from 2003 to 2011 and refer to this series of bombardments of Baghdad as part of Operation Shock and Awe.

These videos conclusively show that the bombardment is from 2003 in Baghdad and not a recent strike by Israel.

The verdict 

The viral footage is from a U.S. bombing of Baghdad in 2003 and is unrelated to Israel's recent attack on Lebanon.