Video of a drone entangled in power lines wrongly associated with the Iran-Israel conflict
Context
As a step of counter-action against Israel, Iran attacked Israel with more than 300 drones and missiles on April 13 and 14, 2024. This was in response to the speculated strike by Israel on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, 2024. The strike, called Operation True Promise by Iran, led to explosions in various cities (like Tel Aviv) across Israel.
As the aerial attacks by Iran affected various parts of Israel, several photos and videos of the incident are being circulated across social media platforms. However, one such video about an Iranian drone was found to be falsely connected to the conflict.
Posts about the drone
Iran sent a drone to Israel and it got stuck in electical power lines in Iraq. 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/CQmge1SSaA
— Incognito (@Incognito_qfs) April 14, 2024
The video claims that this drone was allegedly sent from Iran’s side in an attempt to attack Israel but got stuck in the electrical power lines in Iraq. The post received 1.2 million views, got 11K likes and was retweeted 1.9K times on X.
Several other accounts have been found to circulate this further across X.
Iran sent a drone to Israel, and it got stuck in electrical power lines in Iraq 🤣
और ये चले हैं इजराईल का किला भेदने 🤣🤣#Netanyahu #Israel #IranAttack #stockmarketcrashpic.twitter.com/DvYKgqOb6j
— Drunk Sharma (@Rohit_SVK) April 14, 2024
BREAKING 🔴🆘Please help
One Iran Kamikaze drone stuck on power lines in Northern Iraq , failed to reach Israel #IranAttack pic.twitter.com/31GleVf8SS
— Ukraine Diary🇺🇦+Iran🇮🇷🇮🇱Israel War Latest (@UkraineDiary) April 14, 2024
Truth
This video is older than the current Iran-Israel fight it is being associated with. Fact-checking of the video was done by an Indian news organisation, which found the old posts with the same video clip.
An unidentified drone crashes into electroc cables in the town of Qamar al-Din in the Hasakah countryside. pic.twitter.com/PVwfpa6fKG
— Vlogging NW Syria (@timtams83) February 21, 2024
Syria: photo of the day. An unidentified drone stuck in electric wires in Hasakah province. pic.twitter.com/U7borPzbFm
— QalaatM (@QalaatM) February 20, 2024
The videos found on the platform X of the same drone were from February 20 and 21, 2024. Some of these videos claim that this video is of a suicide drone that crashed into the power lines of Qamar al-Din village in the Hasakah countryside.
⚪️Hasakah: A suicide drone crashed into electrical and communications lines in the village of Qamar Aldin near the town of Abu Khashb in northwestern Hasakah province. The UAV is completely intact with no detonation of the explosives making this a very dangerous item to remove.… pic.twitter.com/WPCAggJi3F
— Steele M (@SteeleSyAA) February 21, 2024