2013 Egypt hospital siege video falsely viral as ‘shooting in al-Shifa hospital’

On November 15, Israeli forces raided the al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip as part of an “operation against Hamas in a specified area”. The Israeli military also claimed to have found weapons in the location even as Hamas called the discovery staged. Against this backdrop, a 28-second clip is viral on social media as scenes of shooting inside the premises of al-Shifa Hospital.

X (formerly Twitter) Blue user Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) shared the above-mentioned clip on November 15 with the following caption: “🚨🚨BREAKING: FIRST FOOTAGE OF SHOOTING INSIDE THE AL SHUFA HOSPITAL. Does this prove Hamas was present inside the hospital, and clashing with the IDF as per this video? Source: kodkodgroup”. The tweet had received over 5.64 Lakh views and over 300 retweets before being deleted by the user. (Archive)

Another X user, Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi), posted the same video on November 15 claiming that the video showed the situation at al-Shifa Hospital and that American media outlets such as CNN and the New York Times were ‘whitewashing’ these incidents. The tweet has received over 1 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 2,700 times. (Archive)

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. pic.twitter.com/OMvF6Ba8zw

— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) November 15, 2023

Several other users such as @DrEliDavid, Hassan Mafi, @hulme_edward, @HaniyaFatiha shared the video on X.

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Fact Check

We noticed that under @s_m_marandi’s tweet, several users had commented that the video was originally from Egypt and dated back to 2013. Some also mentioned that the footage was from Rabaa Hospital in Egypt. One user also attached a link to a YouTube video.

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The link led us to a YouTube video posted in 2013 by the channel Twthek Majzara which is the same as the now viral video. The description of the video in Arabic says: “Heavy shooting at detainees in Rabaa Hospital”. We further searched on YouTube using Arabic keywords and found the same video on the channel Rassd News Network. The news channel’s logo is also visible in the viral video.

 

The video was posted 10 years back on August 16, 2013, and the title in Arabic can be translated as: “Heavy shooting at detainees at Rabaa Hospital on the day of the massacre”.

Further, we ran a relevant keyword search with the date filter that led us to several news reports regarding the incident in Egypt in 2013. As per a news report by the New York Times, on August 13, 2013, Egyptian security forces raided two encampments that housed supporters of the ousted President Mohamed Morsi demonstrating sit-in protests — killing hundreds.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was ousted in a military-led coup on July 3, 2013. Following this, his supporters set fire to local government offices. This prompted the government to issue shooting orders on anyone causing any form of destruction to the state buildings.

From our above findings, it is clear that the viral video is not from Gaza and is completely unrelated to the ongoing war. The video dates back to 2013 and is from Egypt when violence broke out after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was removed from his position.