FACT CHECK: Video Claims To Show IDF Troops Discovering Armory In Al-Shifa Hospital
A video shared on X claims to show Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops discovering an armory in Al-Shifa Hospital.
गाज़ा के अल शिफ़ा अस्पताल में हमास के आतंकियों ने टनल बनाकर हथियारों का ज़ख़ीरा जमा कर रखा था।
आतंकी हमास ने गाजा के मस्जिदों, स्कूलों, अस्पतालों को अपना छुपने और हथियारों को जमा करके रखने का ठिकाना बना रखा है।
आतंकी हमास को खत्म करना है तो इन सभी को भी खत्म करना होगा। pic.twitter.com/frCpX8k7fX
— Jatinder Pal Khanna (@KhannaPal) November 13, 2023
Verdict: False
The video has been circulating since August 2023. When the post was shared, Israel had not captured the hospital.
Fact Check:
Israel accused Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes, according to the Times of Israel. The IDF launched an operation against the hospital Nov. 14, BBC News reported.
Social media users have been claiming to show an armory under the Al-Shifa Hospital. One social media user wrote, “Hamas terrorists had built a tunnel and stored a cache of weapons in Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital. Terrorist Hamas has made Gaza’s mosques, schools, hospitals a place to hide and store weapons. If we want to eliminate terrorist Hamas then all of them will also have to be eliminated.”
This video, however, precedes the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and Israel’s ground campaign. Through a reverse image search, Check Your Fact found that the video has been circulating since August 2023. Check Your Fact found a version of the video on Telegram shared Aug. 31.
“A laboratory for converting airsoft weapons into combat weapons was discovered not far from Ramallah,” reads the Telegram post. (RELATED: No, Bella Hadid Did Not Announce Support For Israel In The Israel-Hamas Conflict)
BBC Verify reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh debunked another viral claim and found that the video was also posted to X by Israeli writer Hanan Amiur.
נתפס היום ברמאללה.
משל צורני הולם לציון 30 שנה לאוסלו – הטעות החמורה והאסונית ביותר בתולדות המפעל הציוני pic.twitter.com/PINhMLcIrL— חנן עמיאור Hanan Amiur 🇮🇱 (@hananamiur) August 31, 2023
“Caught today in Ramallah. A fitting formal parable to mark the 30th anniversary of Oslo – the most serious and disastrous mistake in the history of the Zionist enterprise,” Amiur tweeted.
An IDF spokesperson told Check Your Fact that the claim was false, saying it was “not a video released from Al-Shifa.”
The video was also debunked by the Quint, an Indian fact-checking website, which also reported that an Israeli outlet covered the story. As of the time of the original X post, Israel had not captured the hospital.
