As France prepared a massive security operation to protect the Olympic Games, a video purporting to depict Hamas threatening to attack Paris circulated on social media. But the Palestinian militant group has denied creating the clip, the French Interior Ministry has said it has not been able to verify its authenticity and experts say it appears to be part of a disinformation campaign.
“Islamist releases video threatening the Paris Olympics”, says the caption of an Instagram from July 23, 2024 video.
The clip shows a person wearing a keffiyeh covering their face and a top decorated with the Palestinian flag speaking in Arabic. English subtitles indicate that the speaker is threatening the presence of Israeli athletes at the 2024 Olympic Games with “rivers of blood” and denouncing French support for the nation in its war against Hamas..
In the days leading up to the opening ceremony on July 26, posts sharing different versions of the video spread across the world. Instagram, X, Facebook It is other websites with subtitles in several languages, including French, Portuguese It is Spanish.
French security forces are at your maximum alert to prevent terrorist attacks from spoiling the start of the first Paris Olympic Games in 100 years, and Israel warned of potential threats from Iranian-backed groups against Israeli athletes and tourists. But many were quick to question the authenticity of the video, pointing out Arabic errors and that the accounts sharing it to appear be affiliated with pro-Russian networks rather than Hamas.
“The French secret services and their partners were unable to authenticate the veracity of this video,” said French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on July 24.
Hamas has denied responsibility for the video, according to the jihadist threat analysis group SITE (filed here). The threat monitor quoted Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official based in Qatar, as saying: “This fabricated video is part of Zionist propaganda to incite against the Palestinians resistance.”
‘False flag’
Darmanin said the is the majority of those who share the video “they were either pro-Kremlin or pro-Russia accounts.” However, he refused to attribute them to the Russian state itself, saying the posts could have come from a “sphere that could want to spread disinformation (against) our country.”
Moscow has denied be involved in this type of operation.
Foreign Interference Researcher David Colón said in French publish in X (archived here It is here) that one of the most viewed posts sharing the video comes from the pro-Russia account @aussiecossack.