Did Hezbollah destroy an Israeli base using guided Missiles?
On September 13, 2024, a social media user, ZainabZehra, posted a video on the platform X (formerly Twitter) with the caption, “#Hezbollah Hits Israeli Base By Guided Missiles And Causes Complete Destruction.” The post garnered 397.3K views.
Similar claims were also made by other users on the social media platform X, sharing the same video with similar captions, suggesting it depicted a missile strike on an Israeli military base by Hezbollah also gaining 998 views.
Fact Check
DFRAC investigated the video in question and conducted a reverse Google search, Twitter post and YouTube video dating back to 2019 were found. A media report by ApolloNews was discovered which revealed that the video is not recent and does not depict any incident involving Hezbollah or Israel. The original footage was traced back to an explosion that occurred on March 21, 2019, at a chemical plant in Yancheng, Jiangsu, China. The plant produced toxic organic chemicals, and the explosion resulted in a massive fire that sent flames shooting into the sky. The shockwave from the blast shattered windows in nearby buildings, and the explosion was so powerful that a 3.0 magnitude earthquake was recorded locally.
Further details about the 2019 incident revealed that the chemical plant had been cited for 13 safety violations just the previous year, including the lack of proper emergency measures for chemical spills at its benzene and methanol loading sites. What made the explosion even more concerning was the proximity of several kindergartens and primary schools to the plant, raising alarms about safety precautions in the area.
Conclusion
It is clear from DFRAC’s fact check that the claim that the video shows Hezbollah hitting an Israeli base with guided missiles is false. The footage is from a 2019 chemical plant explosion in China and has been wrongly used to depict an unrelated event. Hence the claim is misleading.
