Similar fake news has been shared on X and Facebook here, here And here.
Haniyeh was killed in Tehran on July 31. The attack has been attributed to Israel, which has not commented directly on the matter.
According to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Israel killed Haniyeh with a “short-range projectile” fired from outside his Tehran compound.
Iran said it had the “legal right” to respond to the killing, which came nearly 10 months after an Israeli military offensive ravaged the Gaza Strip and was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel.
However, the circulating video shows the aftermath of a strike in Damascus.
Reverse searches for keyframes on Google revealed that they were shared in a report about the strike by an Argentinian news agency here on April 1, 2024 (archived link).
It was also published by an Israeli newspaper here (archived link).
AFP reported at the time that an airstrike had taken place The consulate building of Iran in the Syrian capital on April 1, killing 16 people, including seven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
The highest-ranking figure killed was Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Quds Force, which directs Iran’s foreign military operations.
Below is a screenshot of the video in the fake news (left) and the clip shared in news reports about the Damascus strike (right):
The video matches a AFP photo shows the consulate after the strike.
Below is a screenshot of the circulating video (left) and the AFP photo (right), with their associated features highlighted:
The site seen in the circulating video (left) matches a photo geotagged at the same location (right) on Google Maps (archived link):
