By Archis Chowdhury
A video showing a chaotic scene at a hospital, with people ducking for cover, is being shared with the claim that it shows the recent raid by Israeli Defence Force at the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.
BOOM found this claim to be false; the video is over ten years old, and was shot at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Hospital, in Cairo, Egypt, during the massacre of over 800 protesters who opposed the military rule led by former Minister of Defence Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
IDF soldiers raided the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza on November 15, 2023, which Israel claims was being used by Hamas to run an underground network. Following the raid, Israel claimed to have found a stash of rifles, ammunition and vests at the hospital, which has become one of the primary places of refuge in Gaza following Israel's counter-offensive to Hamas' attack on October 7, 2023. So far, over 12,000 people have been reportedly killed in Gaza from Israel's airstrikes.
Also Read:Deepfake Video Creator Tests Social Media Platforms In Israel-Hamas Conflict
One of the captions shared with the 28-second-long clip claimed, "This is the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Imagine how hard staff at CNN and The New York Times have to work to whitewash Israeli atrocities."
Find such tweets here and here.
We also found the video being shared on Facebook with a similar caption, which can be viewed here.
Fact Check
Going through the responses to a viral X post, BOOM found many users countering the claim by stating that the video is from Egypt, and not Gaza, and over 10 years old.
BOOM also observed that the video had the logo of Rassd News Network, a citizen news network based out of Cairo, Egypt.
Using this as cue, BOOM used Google translate to conduct relevant keyword searches in Arabic, which led us to a video uploaded on RNN's official YouTube channel on August 16, 2013.
The video was titled, "Heavy shooting at detainees at Rabaa Hospital on the day of the massacre."
According to the RNN report, the video was shot at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Hospital in Cairo, Egypt, during the Rabaa massacre of 2013.
On July 3, 2013, then-Defence Minister Abdel Fattah El-Sisi came to power through a military coup, overthrowing the democratically elected erstwhile President Mohamed Morsi. As massive protests emerged around Cairo by Morsi's supporters, the Egyptian police, along with members of the armed forces, violently dispersed them on August 14, 2013, leading to the death of over 800 protesters who had camped at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square in Cairo.
