India TV Fact Check: Hours after Iran launched missile attacks on Israel, a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making the rounds on social media with claims that he is fleeing into a bunker fearing an attack. However, this claim has been proved wrong in a fact check done by India TV.
On Tuesday (October 1), Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel, another sharp escalation of the months-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militias Hezbollah and Hamas. Sirens blared across the country, and Israelis were ordered to stay in protected areas. An Israeli security official said that in cooperation with the United States, the Israeli Air Force intercepted many of the missiles, though there were some direct hits damaging buildings and igniting some fires.
What is going viral?
After Iran attacked Israel, a video of Netanyahu is going viral on social media. In this video, Netanyahu is seen running in the corridor of the building. This video is being shared by pro-Iranian users and it is being claimed that the Israeli Prime Minister is running into a bunker fearing Iran's attack. Sharing this video on social media platform X, MINHAJ SHEIKH wrote "Israeli PM Netanyahu rushes to find bunker in Tel Aviv after Iranian missile attack."
At the same time, a user named True Watchman shared this video and wrote "After the Iranian attack, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu ran away and hid in a bunker fearing death."
India TV investigated
As the video of Netanyahu was going viral on social media, we decided to investigate the claims surrounding it. Initially, we used Google Open Search to look for news articles related to the claim. One of the results was a report from India TV titled, "Iran fired more than 200 missiles on Israel, Netanyahu went to the bunker, America also in action." However, there was no video showing Netanyahu heading to a bunker in this article or in other related news.
To dig deeper, we took a screenshot from the viral video and used a Google reverse image search. This led us to a tweet posted by Benjamin Netanyahu on December 14, 2021. In the tweet, Netanyahu can be seen running, and the video matches the one being circulated. The caption of the video on his tweet states, "I am always proud to run for you. This was taken in the Knesset half an hour ago." Thus, it is evident that the video shows Netanyahu going to the Israeli Parliament, not to a bunker as claimed.
What came out in fact check?
A fact check done by India TV has revealed that Netanyahu went to the bunker amid Iran's missile attack. However, the video that is going viral on social media is three years old and is of the Israeli Parliament. It has nothing to do with the current incident. People are advised to be careful with such posts.
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