Does video show scenes in Israel after a missile attack? No, it’s from 9/11

What is the claim?

A video of people running across a street with a plume of smoke rising out of a building has been shared on social media, alongside the false claim that the visuals show the current situation in Israel. An X (formerly Twitter) user shared the video with the caption, "This video is from Israel, I am worried about our blind devotees who are recruited in the Israeli army, what will happen to them (Translated from Hindi)???" The post received 6,100 likes and was reshared 1,600 times. Archives of similar claims can be found here and here. 

Screenshot of the social media posts with viral video. (Source: X/Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)

The claim originated after Iran fired more than 200 missiles at Israel on October 1, 2024, as a retaliation against the recent assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas officials amid the Israel-Hamas war. On October 3, Israel launched an airstrike on a building in Beirut, killing at least nine people, amid the renewed Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon.

However, the claim is false. The video shows people running to take shelter after the September 2001 terror attacks in New York.

Here are the facts

Through a reverse image search, we found the same video shared on a YouTube Channel named Leo Caseros (archived here) on September 11, 2017. The caption reads, “Lower Manhattan Sept 11, 2001, South Tower collapse.” The description mentions the two hijacked planes that were hijacked and crashed into the two World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001.

Dvids (Defense Visual Information Distribution Service) shared numerous visuals of the September 11, 2001 attack in a video titled "9/11 Memorial" uploaded on September 11, 2024. The visuals seen at 0:02 in this video match the viral video. Dover Air Force Base also shared this video on September 11, 2024. An ABC 7 News report from 2021 also published these visuals, seen at 0:35, stating that they show scenes immediately after the 9/11 attack.

Comparison of the viral video with the Dvids video. (Source: X/Dvids)

On September 11, 2001, the Islamist extremist group al-Qaeda attacked the 110-storeyed 1 WTC (North Tower) and 2 WTC (South Tower), which housed approximately 35,000 workers and 430 firms. Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked commercial airline planes and flew two of them into the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan and the third into the Pentagon. Around 3,000 people were killed, and over 6,000 others were injured in the attack.

The verdict

A video of people running in fear after the terrorist attack in New York on September 11, 2001, has been shared with the false claim as the situation in Israel. It is unrelated to the ongoing conflict.