According to the Gaza health ministry, Israeli strikes on Gaza since May 10 have killed 232 Palestinians, including 65 children, as well as fighters, and have wounded another 1,900. The Israeli army says Hamas and other Islamist armed groups in Gaza have fired more than 4,300 rockets towards Israel over the course of the conflict, but the overwhelming majority of those headed for populated areas were intercepted by its Iron Dome air defences. The rockets claimed 12 lives in Israel, including two children and an Israeli soldier, with one Indian and two Thai nationals among those killed, the police say.
The conflict escalated after Hamas fired rockets towards Jerusalem after clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Israel launched an air campaign which it said has hit hundreds of military targets in Gaza and killed dozens of commanders, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been set back “many years”.
However, Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire Thursday, halting a bruising 11-day war that caused widespread destruction in the Gaza Strip, brought life in much of Israel to a standstill and left more than 200 people dead. At 2 am local time, just as the cease-fire took effect, frenzy life returned to the streets of Gaza. People went out of their homes, some shouting “Allahu Akbar” or whistling from balconies. Many fired in the air, celebrating the truce.
Meanwhile, amid this heightened conflict between Israel and Hamas, and continuous rocket attacks and airstrikes against each other, a video went viral claiming to be the Israeli air defence system in action. The video shows a dramatic exchange of fire between anti-aircraft guns and a fighter plane. The video shows anti-aircraft guns going full blast targetting the jet, while the latter manoeuvres through the hail of artillery. Netizens have been sharing this on Facebook, while the caption reads, “Israel Defense System”.
Well, by breaking the video into small key-frames with the help of InVid Verify tool and running a reverse image search led to a YouTube video posted on 14th May 2021. The title of the post was mentioned in Arabic “Bombing the Israeli air force.” The YouTube channel claimed to have created the video through ARMA 3 simulation. The description of the video mentioned that “I definitely don’t want to give the impression that I glorify war, I am just an enthusiastic gamer. The weapon systems are of course used differently in real life, but I am happy to educate you about these weapons systems, many do not even know that they exist. This video was created using the content of ArmA 3 – A – 10 Warthog vs Anti – Air Tank – Missiles and Tracers firing – GAU – 8 Avenger – Simulation Link no longer available.”
Furthermore, after a more thorough search, a longer version of the video was found, which was uploaded on YouTube on 25th January 2021. The title of the video reads as “ArmA 3 – Counter-Rocket Artillery Mortar System in Action”. ARMA 3 is an open-world, realism-based, military tactical shooting video game developed and published by Bohemia Interactive, a Czech video game developer based in Prague. Also, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has confirmed they are using the Iron Dome air defence systems against Hamas rocket attacks.
Since the video exists way before the Israel and Palestine attacks, it can be clearly ascertained that the video is not related neither is it real.
