Fact Check: OLD video from US goes viral as panic after Iran attack on Tel Aviv airport
As the Israel-Iran conflict continues to escalate, a video of people running in panic in a building is being widely shared as visuals from Israel's Tel Aviv airport, where chaos allegedly erupted after an Iranian drone crashed nearby.A Facebook user captioned the video: 'Panic and chaos at Tel Aviv Airport as loitering drones crash and explode near the premises, prompting mass evacuations.' Its archive can be seen here.advertisement
India Today Fact Check found that the video has nothing to do with the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict. It is from February 2025 and was shot at a mall in the US, where rumours of a gunman caused panic.OUR PROBEWith the help of Google Lens, we found that the video was first shared in February 2025. This confirmed that the video could not be from the Iran-Israel conflict, which began on June 13.At that time, an Instagram user wrote that the incident took place on February 16 at the Florida Mall in Orlando, a city in the US state of Florida. As per the post, a man in his 20s accidentally shot and injured himself while adjusting a gun. His injuries were non-life-threatening. We also found several news reports about this incident, which said that the gunshot caused panic among the mall's visitors.advertisementThe local police later clarified that 'reports of a shooting at the Florida Mall are unfounded" and that "there was an accidental discharge of a firearm and the only person injured is the person who was handling the firearm'.Photos of the Florida Mall available on Google Maps also prove that the viral video was shot here.Thus, it is clear that the video is not from Tel Aviv Airport but from an American mall.It's noteworthy that Iranian news agencies recently reported that Iran hit the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv with missiles. But we did not find Israeli or international media reports corroborating this. Also, according to reports, the Ben Gurion Airport and Israel's airspace have been closed since the beginning of the Iran-Israel conflict, leaving tens of thousands stranded, whose flights to Tel Aviv were cancelled. However, a report in the Times of Israel said that the first two flights bringing Israeli citizens back to Israel from Cyprus landed at Ben Gurion Airport on June 18.Must Watch
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