After heavy clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli forces in southern Lebanon in November 2024, a photo was shared in social media posts falsely claiming that it showed an Israeli military helicopter that had been shot down. The photo actually shows a helicopter firing flares over Gaza and was taken by an AFP photographer in March 2019.
“Lebanon has shot down its enemy’s helicopter,” one Thai language read Facebook post shared on November 24, 2024.
The post shared a link to an article on the Thai social media platform Blockdit, with a sample thumbnail of a helicopter in the sky, surrounded by smoke.
“Israeli helicopter shot down by Lebanon, scattering remains of soldiers (on board),” read the headline of the article.
The article claimed that according to local media, an Israeli military helicopter was shot down by an anti-aircraft system near Khiam, a town in southern Lebanon, about six kilometers from the border.
Screenshot of the fake Facebook post captured on November 28, 2024
The post circulated after intense clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli forces near Khiam, with Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reporting an intense air and artillery bombardment of the town (archived link).
All-out war broke out in September after nearly a year of limited cross-border firefights initiated by Hezbollah in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s attack on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a US-French brokered truce that took effect at dawn on November 27, 2024. The ceasefire has reduced the level of fighting, but Israel has hit Hezbollah targets it says violate the ceasefire (archived link).
The war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has killed at least 3,961 people, most after Israel stepped up its bombing campaign in September, according to the Health Ministry in Beirut. On the Israeli side, hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities said.
Similar posts making the same claim were also shared elsewhere in Thai, as well as Indonesian and Arabic.
However, the photo does not show a helicopter shot down over Khiam.
Flares over Gaza
A reverse image search on Google led to the same photo used in a report published by The Times of Israel newspaper on May 20, 2019 (archived link).
The photo is attributed to AFP photographer Mohammed Abed and the caption reads: “An Israeli helicopter fires flares over the Gaza Strip, hours after a rocket from the Palestinian enclave hit a house near Tel Aviv, wounding seven people, leading to fears of a serious attack.” escalation, on March 25, 2019.”
Below is a screenshot comparison between the mistakenly shared photo (left) and the same photo used in The Times of Israel’s report (right):
Screenshot comparison between the mistakenly shared photo (left) and the same photo used in The Times of Israel report (right)
The photo can also be found in the AFP photo archive.
Israel launched airstrikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in response to a rocket fire that landed near Tel Aviv on March 25, 2019, wounding seven Israelis (archived link).
Israel said it had evidence that Hamas had fired the rocket (archived link). A Hamas official denied it was intentional and suggested it could have been a technical glitch caused by a storm that hit the region.
In response, Israel has attacked dozens of Hamas targets in Gaza, including razing the office of Hamas chief Ismail Haniya. Seven people were injured.
AFP has debunked other misinformation related to the Middle East conflict here.
