The Israeli government has officially declared war after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7. Hamas is a Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.
The militants rolled through a fortified border fence and gunned down civilians and soldiers in Israeli communities along the Gaza frontier during a Jewish holiday. Israel struck back with airstrikes, including one that flattened a 14-story tower that held Hamas offices.
On Oct. 8, a viral video claiming to show Hamas militants entering Israel by parachute was posted on X by multiple accounts. But many people in the comments suggest the video was actually filmed in Egypt.
THE QUESTION
Does this video show Hamas militants parachuting into Israel?
THE SOURCES
- Original TikTok video from Sept. 27, 2023
- El-Nasr Club, a soccer club in Cairo, Egypt
- El-Nasr Club Instagram page
- Google Translate
- Google Maps
THE ANSWER
No, this video doesn’t show Hamas militants parachuting into Israel. The original video was filmed in Egypt and shared on TikTok in late September 2023.
WHAT WE FOUND
This viral video does not show Hamas militants entering Israel by parachute during the surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023. The original video was actually filmed in Egypt and posted on TikTok in late September, weeks before the latest Israeli-Hamas conflict began.
VERIFY found that TikTok user eslamre1, whose username is watermarked on the viral video, posted the original video from Egypt on Sept. 27, 2023. Muslims in Egypt observed Mawlid al-Nabi, an Islamic holiday celebrating Prophet Mohammad’s birthday, on that date, according to news reports.
Using Google to loosely translate from Arabic to English, VERIFY found that a person speaking in the video is saying: “This year, the Egyptian Thunderbolt entered the parachute weapon and landed here at the new Egyptian El-Nasr Club.”
The Egyptian Thunderbolt is an Egyptian Army special forces unit known as the El-Sa’ka Forces, according to an article published in 2020 on the Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Ahram’s website. The El-Nasr Club is a soccer club based in Cairo, Egypt.
In the TikTok video, you can see a team of soccer players wearing red uniforms while standing on a soccer field surrounded by a blue fence as members of the Egyptian Thunderbolt land. You can also see other spectators sitting and running by dozens of blue and green chairs during the paratroopers’ descent.
TikTok user eslamre1 also shared additional videos of the Egyptian Thunderbolt’s landing on Sept. 28 and Sept. 29. The El-Nasr Club is hashtagged in each video caption.
A series of photos posted on the El-Nasr Club’s official Instagram page in May 2023 show soccer players in red uniforms standing on a field surrounded by the same blue fence and blue and green chairs in the background. Photos of the El-Nasr Club posted to Google Maps also show the same blue fence and blue and green chairs that appear in the video.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter, text alerts and our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Learn More »