A video that shows heavy firing on a mosque’s minaret is viral on social media with the following Hindi caption, “Israeli army fired at a mosque in Palestine near Israeli border because they were annoyed with the sound of Azan coming from the mosque. (इजरायल बॉर्डर के पास फलस्तीन में बनी मस्जिद से अज़ान की आवाज़ से तंग आकर इस्राइली फोज ने मस्जिद के गुंबद पर गोली बारी करदी.)” (Archive link) In the video, the sound of azan can be heard in the background.

The same video was uploaded on Facebook with the claim, ”Israeli army attacked Palestinian mosque, but nothing happened to the mosque even after the attack.” This post was shared over 1,700 times. (Archive link)

*इजरायल बॉर्डर के पास फलस्तीन में बनी मस्जिद से अज़ान की आवाज़ आते ही इस्राइली (यहूदी आतंकी) फोज ने

*इजरायल बॉर्डर के पास फलस्तीन में बनी मस्जिद से अज़ान की आवाज़ आते ही इस्राइली (यहूदी आतंकी) फोज ने मस्जिद के गुंबद पर गोली बारी करदी इतनी गोलियां चलाने के बाद भी मीनार पूरी शान से खड़ा रहा गोली चलाने वाले ने सोचा कि पूरा मीनार गोलियों से भून देंगे तो गिर जाएगा मगर मीनार जस का तस खड़ा रहा*😭
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

Posted by Mohd Ashraf Ali-ओवैसी समर्थक on Thursday, February 25, 2021

Several Twitter and Facebook users shared the video with both captions. Alt News received a request on its WhatsApp helpline number (+917600011160) as well.

Fact check

We broke down the video into several keyframes and did a reverse image search. This led us to a Turkish news article from March 3, 2008. The title of the article is “US soldier’s new game minaret percussion”.

The video was also shared by American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore in 2008 which carries the testimony of US marine Jon M. Turner. He said that the video shows the US army attacking a mosque in Iraq.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO7xwnZA124]

We found another video of the testimony of Jon Turner where he confessed that he was in Iraq in 2006 with his troops. The viral video is played at 6:40 in the testimony. “It is illegal to shoot into a mosque unless you were taking fire from it. There was no fire that was taken from that mosque. It was shot into because we were angry,” he said.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6iLoXIpJFQ]

There is also no sound of azan in the actual footage of the mosque attack.

A video of the US army firing at a mosque in Iraq in 2008 is viral with the false claim that the Israeli forces attacked a mosque in Palestine over the sound of azan.

About the Author

Aqib is monitoring and researching mis/disinformation at Alt News