Video from 2013 of a Hospital in Egypt Presented as Recorded in the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza
The video misrepresents the situation. It began circulating the social networks when the Israeli troops entered the Al-Shifa Hospital on 15 November after a couple of days-long siege
Photo: Screenshot from the video
This video clip shared on Facebook was not made recently – i.e., not in November 2023, in a hospital in Gaza… It was recorded 10 years ago in a hospital in Cairo. The video clip is inaccurately presented, and the post is omitting the context
We are fact-checking a post on the social network Facebook (screenshot here) sharing a video clip with the following text:
(Video) The first clip from the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
A part of the text states that ”videos showing the interior of Al-Shifa Hospital and the Israeli forces inside are being shared on social networks”.
Israeli Army announced that it entered the Al-Shifa compound, the largest hospital in Gaza, calling upon Hamas militants to surrender, states the text.
However, the video shared as part of the text and announced in the headline, is not from 2023, nor from the hospital Al-Shifa.
Reuters’ fact-checkers specify that the video presenting chaos accompanied by firearms sounds is from August 2013 from the hospital Rabaa Al-Adawiya in Cairo, Egypt – not from now (November 2023) and not in the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
The video misrepresents the situation. It began circulating the social networks when the Israeli troops entered the Al-Shifa Hospital on 15 November after a couple of days-long siege. Israeli forces say that the hospital was sitting atop tunnels used by the Islamic group Hamas, a claim that according to Reuters, was denied by Hamas.
Proof that the video originates from 2013 is the fact that it was released on the YouTube social network by the Egyptian media outlet Rassd News Network (RNN), in mid-August 2013 and it shows a shooting within the Rabaa Hospital. The Egyptian flag can be seen from the 30th second of the video.
The Atlantic and Washington Post also published photographs of the medical center and they covered the event on 14 August 2013.
At the time, Egyptian Forces stormed the hospital to crack down the protests supporting the overthrown president Mohamed Morsi.
The event in 2013, presented in the video of the post we are fact-checking, involved human rights groups demanding accountability for the deaths of hundreds of Egyptian citizens killed in just one day when the Egyptian security forces cracked down a protest against the impeachment of the first democratically elected president of Egypt.
They claim that more than 800 people were killed as the security forces stormed the Rabaa al-Adawiya, where the protesters had been camping for weeks. Hundreds of those accused of involvement in the protest were convicted in a mass trial in 2018, many receiving death sentences or long prison terms.
As The New York Times writes, Israeli troops entered the largest hospital in Gaza on Thursday, searching for tunnels under the hospital that were dug by Hamas, even after Israel had to face increased pressure from the West to avoid civilian casualties and diminish the sufferings of the Gaza population.
Due to all the above-noted facts, the post fact-checked is assessed as a post missing context. The video-clip is not from 2023 from the hospital Al-Shifa in Gaza, but from 2013, in Cairo, Egypt.
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