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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

War & conflict fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about war & conflict. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

5,834 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYWar & conflict

The viral video shows a man teaching his daughter to laugh each time they hear an Israeli air strike

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The video does show a father encouraging his young daughter to laugh when they hear bomb sounds, but the review identifies the claim’s key misrepresentation as its connection to Israeli air strikes. The people in the video are Syrian father Abdullah Mohammed and his daughter Salwa, and the reported events took place in Idlib, Syria—not Israel. The review therefore rates the claim false, while distinguishing the video’s real subject from the misleading description attached to it. To investigate, FACTLY says it searched online using keywords related to the video and the accompanying claim. That search led it to news reports about the video dating to 2020. The review says those reports identified Mohammed as a Syrian father who turned the bombing situation into a game for his then-three-year-old daughter, encouraging her to laugh whenever they heard a bomb sound. It also says the video went viral in 2020 and that news outlets reported on his approach to helping his daughter cope. The distinction is important: the review does not say the video fabricated the father-daughter interaction or the bomb sounds. Instead, it rejects the claim that those events involved Israeli air strikes, explaining that the family’s experience was in Syria. The supplied excerpt does not identify the individual news reports or provide further details about the video’s recording, so the account here is limited to what the review states.

مرصد أخبار ميترWar & conflict

حماس تحرق طفلا إسرائيليا في الفرن وتقتل والده

Publisher’s rating: لم يوفر لا دوفيد ولا كارولين ولا حتى إيلي بيير أي صور أو فيديو توثق وجود طفل إسرائيلي مخبوز في الفرن بالفعل.

The review examines a story circulated on social media that Hamas had baked an Israeli child in an oven and killed the child’s father. It identifies New York Sun editor and founder David Ivony as posting the allegation on X on October 29, 2023, attributing it to United Hatzalah founder Eli Beer. It also describes journalist Caroline Glick’s post, which added allegations that the child’s father was killed and the mother repeatedly raped. The review notes that Glick’s additional claims were not part of what Beer said about the alleged child: “خلال كلمته عن ‘الطفل المخبوز’، لم يذكر إيلي بيير أي شئ عن اغتصاب جماعي لوالدة الطفل، ولا عن قتل والده.” The review’s central evidentiary point is that the people cited in the viral posts did not provide visual documentation. It reports that Ivony’s post had received more than 15 million views, but says that neither Ivony, Glick, nor Beer supplied photographs or video showing a child baked in an oven. It also says the account lacked identifying details: Beer and the Israeli government had not named the child, given the child’s age, or provided information about the family. The review further reports that, by the time it was written, the Israeli government had issued no information or obituary for the child. As an additional check described in the review, Israeli journalist Ishai Cohen said he had asked the Israeli military and other organizations about the story and received no information confirming the event. The review concludes that the allegation was unsupported; its cited evidence establishes the absence of the documentation and identifying information it sought, rather than supplying direct proof of what happened to a particular child.

FACTLYWar & conflict

Video showing the CCTV footage of a recent bomb attack in a hospital in Gaza

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a video circulated as CCTV footage of a recent bombing at a hospital in Gaza during the Israel–Palestine conflict. FACTLY says the clip instead shows an earlier attack on Omar bin Abdul Aziz Hospital in Aleppo, Syria, and is unrelated to the Gaza conflict. The review distinguishes the footage from the attack on Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on 17 October 2023. (S1: “A video is being shared on social media claiming it shows the CCTV visuals of a recent bomb attack in a hospital in Gaza.”; “The video shared in the post shows an old bomb attack in the Omar bin Abdul Aziz hospital in Aleppo, Syria.”; “The Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter, was hit by airstrikes on 17 October 2023.”) To check the clip’s origin, the review reports conducting a reverse image search of screenshots. It says this led to a 2016 tweet by Syrian conflict reporter Fared Al Mahlool describing the visuals as a hospital targeted in Syria; the video’s timestamp indicated a recording date of 16 July 2016. The review also reports finding the same video on the Aleppo Media Center YouTube channel, published on 31 July 2016. (S1: “On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, the same video was found tweeted by a journalist from Syria.”; “Based on the timestamp of this video, it indicates that the recording took place on 16 July 2016.”; “the same video was found to be published by the Aleppo Media Center (AMC) YouTube channel on 31 July 2016.”) The review places the footage in the context of air strikes on Omar Bin Abdul Aziz Hospital in eastern Aleppo in July 2016, and concludes that the old Syrian video was misrepresented as footage of the recent Gaza hospital attack. Its account therefore identifies a false location and time for the video, rather than disputing that a hospital in Gaza was hit. (S1: “In July 2016, the Russian-backed Syrian government forces conducted air strikes on Omar Bin Abdul Aziz Hospital in the Al-Maadi neighbourhood in the eastern part of Aleppo City.”; “But the video shared in the post is old and has nothing to do with the recent attack on the Gaza City Hospital.”)

El Detector / Univision NoticiasWar & conflict

Este video muestra un avión atacando objetivos terrestres y la activación de defensas antiaéreas en el conflicto entre Hamas e Israel.

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerns a video showing an aircraft attacking ground targets as air defenses fire, which was presented as footage from the Israel-Hamas conflict that began on October 7, 2023. The original investigation describes those same visible events and concludes that the clip is not from that conflict: it comes from Arma 3, a military simulation video game. The on-screen words “Israel x Gaza” do not establish that the footage depicts a real attack in Gaza; the review reports that the footage was reused to suggest that connection. To trace the clip, the review says it used a Google reverse-image search on a frame from the video. That search led to a YouTube upload with the same video, titled in English as an A-10 Warthog evading C-RAM fire in an Arma 3 military simulation. The YouTube description identified the video as a simulation made with Arma 3. The review also reports that the account that posted it described making military films and simulations using Arma 3 and DCS as engines. The earlier upload date is central to the review’s finding: it says the matching video was posted on February 8, 2023, roughly eight months before the war began on October 7. That provenance, together with the uploader’s simulation description, supports the conclusion that the footage is from a game rather than combat footage from the claimed conflict. The review therefore finds the video’s presentation as Israel-Hamas war footage false.

المرصد الفلسطيني “تحقق”War & conflict

وزيرة الصحة الفلسطينية للتلفزيون العربي: “مستشفى جنين وابن سينا والرازي كلها تواجه تهديدات بالقصف الإسرائيلي”.

Publisher’s rating: وزيرة الصحة لم تعلن عن تهديد مستشفيات جنين بالقصف في مقابلتها مع التلفزيون “العربي”، والخبر الذي أوردته القناة خطأ تحريري تراجعت عنه لاحقاً، وهو ما أكده أيضاً لـ”تحقق” مديرا مستشفى جنين الحكومي والرازي بعدم تلقي مستشفيات جنين أي تهديدات بالقصف.