As rising tensions between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah raise fears of an all-out war, an old video of a crowded airport has resurfaced with false claims that it shows people fleeing Lebanon in June 2024. The claims are “not true “, said the country’s civil aviation authority. he told AFP. The video has been circulating since at least September 2023 in posts about congestion at the airport in the capital Beirut due to holiday travel.
“The Lebanese people are fleeing Lebanon – a new war is coming”, read a thai language Facebook post on June 24, 2024.
It included a 14-second video showing crowds at an airport. The Arabic text of the video the overlay said it was filmed at Beirut airport.
The post came as Hezbollah exchanged messages almost daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering the war in Gaza.
A recent increase in bellicose rhetoric from both sides has raised fears of a full-scale war between the region’s most powerful army and Hezbollah, a highly influential paramilitary group.
The video was also shared with similar false claims on others Thai social media posts as well as those written English, Arabic, Hindi, Korean It is Indonesian.
But Fadi El-Hassan, director general of Lebanon’s civil aviation agency, recently denied rumors of unusual departures at the country’s airports.
The circulating posts were “not true,” he told AFP on June 24, 2024.
AFP journalists in Beirut also spoke to several travelers who said departing traffic was heavy as usual after the holidays, but not out of the ordinary.
El-Hassan added that inbound traffic to the country was actually higher in the month compared to the same period last year.
distorted clip
Furthermore, a reverse image search of a keyframe of the circulating video revealed that it predates the war in Gaza and the subsequent escalation of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
An identical video was earlier Published by local media organization Lebanon 24 on social media site X on September 2, 2023 (archived link).
The Arabic rubric of the post translates as: “Video: Crowds on the departure line at Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport.”
Below is a screenshot comparison between the fake post (left) and the video published by Lebanon 24 (right):
Keyword searches on Google turned up media reports from the time here It is here which indicated that Beirut airport was packed with travelers joining the Arbaeen pilgrimage to the Iraqi holy city of Karbala (archived links here It is here).
