Israel-Hamas war: Fireworks displays and computer games among fake conflict videos viewed millions of times on social media
False videos, pictures and information have sprung up on social media since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel last weekend which sparked retaliation strikes on the Gaza Strip.
Fireworks displays, excerpts from video games and clips posted months ago are among the false material seen and shared by millions of people on sites like X, formerly Twitter, and TikTok, purporting to show scenes from the conflict.
Social media platforms are under pressure from the UK and EU governments to combat misinformation and violent content on their platforms following the Hamas raid in Israel on Saturday.
But countless false videos purporting to show events in Israel and Gaza remain easily accessible across TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, with some clocking up tens of millions of views.
“It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” said Achiya Schatz, executive director of the Israeli fact-checking NGO Fake Reporter.
One of the most prolific videos we’ve seen falsely claiming to show events from the past few days is pictured below, showing fireworks in an urban area.
At the time of writing, a compilation of footage that uses this clip was the top liked video on TikTok when searching for the word “Gaza”.
The video has garnered 2.9 million likes and over 59 million views altogether.
It’s also been shared on other platforms. On X, multiple users posted the video falsely claiming it shows Israel bombing Gaza with phosphorus. Taken together, these posts have been viewed over a million times.
A reverse image search of the footage’s key frames, however, reveal that it had been shared on the internet before Saturday’s events unfolded.
One user posted it on TikTok on 2 October and another shared it on YouTube on 28 September – meaning the footage existed well before the conflict between Israel and Hamas started.
A series of very similar videos posted to X in June show celebrations in Algiers, Algeria after the win of the football team CR Belouzidad.
The clip was removed from TikTok after Sky News reported it to them.
But not all of the widely-shared false clips require as many steps to reveal them as unrelated to the situation in Israel and Gaza.
Another video shared on X by the American-Israeli lawyer and Republican representative Marc Zell claimed to show a Hamas militant with a Jewish girl he said had been kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
The clip he shared had been viewed over 1.1 million times, while two other posts that repeated the claims also garnered over one million views each.
The video comes with a TikTok watermark which states the name of the account the video was posted by. A brief search on the short form video app shows the video was posted by the user back in September – rendering the claim that it shows a kidnapped child in Gaza impossible.
The clip has since been deleted by its original poster, but it continues to be reshared elsewhere with the false context attached.
X has issued a “community note” on some of the most widely-shared iterations of the video on its platform, which is a comment underneath certain posts outlining further context.
If enough users add notes with additional information underneath a particular post, the note will appear visible to all who read it.
The ‘Community Note’ shared under Marc Zell’s post. Pic: X
In this case, users were advised that the clip posted by Mr Zell is unrelated to the conflict in Israel and Gaza. However, other posts using the video and false information remain on X without this additional context.
X today said that its community notes team had been bolstered after the EU issued a warning regarding the spread of misinformation on its platform.
Computer-generated material taken from video games has also proliferated online in the days since the latest fighting in Israel and Gaza broke out.
Sky News found one clip – originally from the combat game Arma 3 – shared on X, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube all claiming to show Hamas militants shooting down Israeli helicopters.
A close look at the video displays clear signs that it is computer generated. The objects lack shadows, and appear cartoonish.
A reverse image search of one of the video’s keyframes alongside the word “video game” reveals images of similar scenes from a game called Arma 3.
A search for the terms “Arma 3 helicopter shot down” reveal a series of clips, including one posted on YouTube February 2023 that matches the clip claimed to be from Gaza.
The same clip from the video game Arma 3 was posted on YouTube shorts in February of this year. Pic: YouTube
On X, the most-viewed posts that use the video carry a community note explaining that the video is not from Israel or Gaza.
However, they’ve still amassed millions of views on the platform. One post has garnered over 2.6 million, while another clip also from Arma 3 but purporting to show Gaza has clocked up over 10.9 million views.
‘It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before’
Achiya Schatz is the executive director of the NGO Fake Reporter, a disinformation watchdog in Israel that asks users to report online falsehoods to them.
He says the amount of misinformation and hateful material surfacing online in the days since the attacks is remarkable.
“It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” he told Sky News.
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Debunking myths of misinformation online
Schatz says that the lack of communication from the Israeli government during the Hamas attack’s initial stages created an information void that, combined with the shock of the attack, became filled with false information and conspiracy theories.
“In terms of the reports we receive from the public, X is definitely at the top,” he told Sky News.
Many of the most widely-shared posts we encountered in our research were made by accounts subscribed to X Premium, the paid-for service that offers users perks including content promotion and financial compensation for posts that perform well.
Using the social listening platform TalkWalker, Sky News analysed the top posts across X, TikTok and YouTube that used the Arabic hashtag “Al Aqsa Flood” – the name given by Hamas to Saturday’s attack.
The post using the hashtag with the highest engagement was from an X Premium user making the unsubstantiated claim that the Emir of Qatar had threatened to halt global gas supplies if the bombing of Gaza did not cease.
This unsubstantiated claim received the highest engagement of any post under the Arabic hashtag for ‘Al Aqsa Flood’. Pic: X
“It was claimed that the Premium option would reduce malicious content. But the truth is, we see paid services that are carrying conspiracies and messages promoting violence. It seems like the structure of content moderation is not sufficiently built and capable to serve the users,” he said.
Meta and X have responded to pressure from the UK and EU regarding the proliferation of misinformation on their platforms, with both companies saying they are putting additional resources towards addressing the situation.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, says it is investigating the material found by Sky News.
X did not respond to a request for comment.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
The ripping up of the trade rule book caused by President Trump’s tariffs will slow economic growth in some countries, but not cause a global recession, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.
There will be “notable” markdowns to growth forecasts, according to the financial organisation’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva in her curtain raiser speech at the IMF’s spring meeting in Washington.
Some nations will also see higher inflation as a result of the taxes Mr Trump has placed on imports to the US. At the same time, the European Central Bank said it anticipated less inflation from tariffs.
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Earlier this month, a flat rate of 10% was placed on all imports, while additional levies from certain countries were paused for 90 days. Car parts, steel and aluminium are, however, still subject to a 25% tax when they arrive in the US.
This has meant the “reboot of the global trading system”, Ms Georgieva said. “Trade policy uncertainty is literally off the charts.”
The confusion over why nations were slapped with their specific tariffs, the stop-start nature of the taxes, and the rapid escalation of the tit-for-tat levies between the US and China sparked uncertainty and financial market turbulence.
“The longer uncertainty persists, the larger the cost,” Ms Georgieva cautioned.
“Unusual” activity in currency and government debt markets – as investors sold off dollars and US government debt – “should be taken as a warning”, she added.
“Everyone suffers if financial conditions worsen.”
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These challenges are being borne out from a “weaker starting position” as public debt levels are much higher in recent years due to spending during the COVID-19 pandemic and higher interest rates, which increased the cost of borrowing.
The trade tensions are “to a large extent” a result of “an erosion of trust”, Ms Georgieva said.
This erosion, coupled with jobs moving overseas, and concerns over national security and domestic production, has left us in a world where “industry gets more attention than the service sector” and “where national interests tower over global concerns,” she added.
US stock markets suffered more significant losses on Wednesday, with stocks in leading AI chipmakers slumping after firms said new restrictions on exports to China would cost them billions.
Nvidia fell 6.87% – and was at one point down 10% – after revealing it would now need a US government licence to sell its H20 chip.
Rival chipmaker AMD slumped 7.35% after it predicted a $800m (£604m) charge due to its MI308 also needing a licence.
Dutch firm ASML, which makes hardware essential to chip manufacturing, fell more than 5% after it missed order expectations and said US tariffs created uncertainty.
The losses filtered into the tech-dominated Nasdaq index, which recovered slightly to end 3% down, while the larger S&P 500 fell 2.2%.
Pic: AP
Such losses would have been among the worst in years were it not for the turmoil over recent weeks.
It comes as China remains the focus of Donald Trump’s tariff regime, with both countries imposing tit-for-tat charges of over 100% on imports.
The US commerce department said in a statement it was “committed to acting on the president’s directive to safeguard our national and economic security”.
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Nvidia’s bespoke China chip is already deliberately less powerful than products sold elsewhere after intervention from the previous Biden administration.
However, the Trump government is worried the H20 and others could still be used to build a supercomputer in China, threatening national security and US dominance in AI.
Nvidia said the move would cost it around $5.5bn (£4.1bn) and the licensing requirement would be in place for the “indefinite future”.
Nvidia’s recently announced a $500bn (£378bn) investment to build infrastructure in America – something Mr Trump heralded as a victory in his mission to boost US manufacturing.
However, it appears to have been too little to stave off the new restrictions.
Pressure has also come from the Democrats, with senator Elizabeth Warren writing to the commerce secretary and urging him to limit chip sales to China.
Meanwhile, the head of US central bank also warned on Wednesday that US tariffs could slow the economy and raise inflation more than expected.
Jerome Powell said the bank would need more time to decide on lowering interest rates.
“The level of the tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated,” he said.
“The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”
Predictions of a recession in the US have risen significantly since the president revealed details of the import taxes a few weeks ago.
However, he subsequently paused the higher rates for 90 days to allow for negotiations.
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