Explosion in Lebanon wrongly shared online as Israeli airstrikes on Iran

The photo circulated after Israel executed air raids on military targets in Iran on October 26, 2024 (archived link).

Israel had vowed to take revenge on Tehran for the October 1 barrage of 200 rockets, the second-ever direct attack by Iran on its arch-enemy.

At about the same time that Israel attacked Iran, Syria’s state news agency SANA said an Israeli airstrike targeted military positions in central and southern Syria.

“Iranian military targets attacked,” read the Thai-language caption next to a photo of a huge explosion Facebook on October 26, 2024. “Israel launched several waves of vengeful attacks on Iran since this morning. Meanwhile, there were also loud explosions in Syria…”

NationTV, a Thai media company with more than four million Facebook followers, falsely shared the image.

Israel is already engaged in a battle on two fronts: a full-scale war against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon since last month, and in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Palestinian Hamas militants for more than a year.

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Dozens of prisoners seized that day are still held by militants in Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory bombing and ground war in Gaza has killed 43,374 people, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run Health Ministry, figures the United Nations considers reliable.

The image of the explosion was also shared in other posts in Thai here And here and English here And here.

However, it shows another Israeli attack on Lebanon.

Israeli attack

Reverse image searches on Google found one accompanying image published by Lebanese photographer Nabil Ismail alongside ten other images on his Instagram post (archived link).

The timestamp of his Instagram post indicated it was published early October 7, 2024, as shown below:

Below is a screenshot comparison of the fake message (left) and the original photo published by Nabil Ismail (right):

On the night of October 6, the Israeli army (IDF) warnings issued who specified their targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut (archived link).

Citing official Lebanese media, AFP reported that on October 6, four Israeli strikes hit southern Beirut, shortly after calls from the Israeli army for residents to evacuate the Hezbollah stronghold, which has been under bombardment for several days (archived link).

AFP reports this about Israel’s attack on Beirut on October 6, showing another scene from the attack (archived link).

At least 1,940 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, when fighting escalated as Israel launched an air and ground offensive against Hezbollah, which carries out rocket attacks in support of Hamas, according to an AFP count based on official figures.

At least 63 people have been killed on the Israeli side, including 12 in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, since cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah erupted in October last year following Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel, according to official Israeli figures.

The Israeli army says 38 soldiers have been killed since it began ground operations in Lebanon.

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the war between Israel and Hamas here.