NEW YORK: A video capturing an explosion in the Crimean port of Sevastopol in March was falsely described online in April as showing an Iranian missile attack on Tel Aviv in Israel.
The dissemination of this video on social media occurred prior to Iran’s drone and missile assault on Israel on April 13, viewed as a response to the Israeli airstrike on the embassy of Iran compound in Syria on April 1st.
One post from April 4, sharing the mislabeled Crimea video, erroneously asserted: “And, there it is. Expected after the CIA report. Iran has started to attack Israeli-occupied Tel Aviv with missiles; fires of hell are burning, several buildings destroyed.”
The video, captured during nighttime, depicts a fiery explosion accompanied by loud bangs in the background.
Even after Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel, the same video continued to circulate on social media platforms, falsely labeled as depicting the “aftermath” of the strikes.
However, the footage was actually recorded in late March 2024 over the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
These scenes were previously featured in media reports on March 23 and March 24 by The Telegraph, Infobae, and Ukrainska Pravda, describing the attack in Sevastopol on March 23.
Russian air defense systems intercepted more than 10 missiles over Sevastopol on that occasion, as reported by Reuters, citing a Russian-appointed official.
The footage published by The Telegraph, credited to an X account, includes a pan to the right at timestamp 00:58, revealing a mid-air explosion and several structures along a street.
These structures are identifiable as those on Nikolaya Muzyki Street in Sevastopol, confirmed by comparing a frame from the video with satellite imagery of the location on Yandex Maps.
VERDICT
Misleading: The video does not depict an Iranian bombing of Tel Aviv in April 2024.
