Footage of an Israeli airstrike on a constructing in Gaza has been shared in Chinese language-language social media posts that falsely claimed it confirmed the Japanese embassy within the coastal Israeli metropolis of Tel Aviv being “bombed”. There have been no official stories of the Japanese embassy in Israel being attacked, and comparable clips of the Gaza high-rise being destroyed in an Israeli air raid have circulated since Could 2021.
“The Embassy of Japan in Israel bombed,” learn simplified-Chinese language sticker textual content on a TikTok video shared on August 20, 2024.
The 15-second clip reveals an explosion and the collapse of a tower block.
The identical footage was additionally shared repeatedly on Douyin, China’s model of TikTok.
China and Japan are perennial rivals in East Asia whose ties are freighted with the bags of Japan’s imperial previous and China’s newer rise to superpower standing (archived hyperlink).
The declare additionally surfaced 10 months into the battle in Gaza (archived hyperlink).
The unprecedented Hamas assaults on Israel on October 7 that sparked the battle resulted within the deaths of 1,205 individuals, largely civilians, in line with an AFP tally based mostly on Israeli official figures that embody hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory army offensive has killed at the very least 41,431 individuals in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, in line with figures supplied by the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures as dependable.
However the video circulating on-line doesn’t present the Japanese embassy and there have been no official stories of an assault on the embassy.
Israeli airstrikes
A reverse picture search on Google utilizing keyframes from the video and subsequent key phrase searches led to an identical video of the identical constructing revealed by Al Jazeera on Could 13, 2021 (archived hyperlink).
When in comparison with the Al Jazeera footage, the falsely shared video seems to have been flipped horizontally.
The Al Jazeera video is titled “Israel destroys third Gaza tower” and its caption states it reveals “the second the 14-storey al-Shorouq tower, housing media places of work in Gaza Metropolis, was fully destroyed by a number of Israeli air raids” on Could 12, 2021.
In line with Human Rights Watch, the constructing — among the many oldest tower blocks in Gaza and a landmark within the metropolis — was certainly one of 4 high-rises destroyed in Israeli air strikes between Could 10 and Could 21 when a ceasefire got here into pressure (archived hyperlink).
Inside these 11 days, Israeli air strikes killed 243 individuals together with 66 youngsters in Gaza, in line with the Hamas-run well being ministry. The Israeli military stated greater than 4,300 rockets had been fired in the direction of the Jewish state by Hamas and Islamic Jihad (archived hyperlink).
Beneath is a screenshot comparability of the falsely shared video (left) and the one revealed by Al Jazeera (proper), with similarities highlighted by AFP:
The Embassy of Japan in Israel is positioned within the Museum Tower in Tel Aviv (archived hyperlinks right here and right here).
Google Avenue View imagery reveals a constructing with a primarily glass facade, completely different from the one seen within the falsely shared video.
AFP has debunked different false claims across the Israel-Gaza battle right here.
