Video shows Malaysia factory fire, not Iranian attack on Israel's air defence system
"The Israeli air defence system in Tel Aviv was destroyed by Iranian missiles," reads Thai-language text on a TikTok video published on June 20, 2025.
The video shows people watching a fire behind a building in the distance before an explosion appears to launch a fireball into the air.
It surfaced a day after a hospital in southern Israel and buildings in the central towns of Ramat Gan and Holon, close to coastal hub Tel Aviv, were struck after a barrage of Iranian missiles (archived link). Iran said the main target of the attack in Israel's south was a military and intelligence base, not the hospital (archived link).
Iran had been firing daily missile barrages at Israel since a wide-ranging Israeli attack on the Islamic republic's nuclear installations and military bases on June 13 triggered the war.
A US-proposed ceasefire announced on June 24 appeared to be holding, bringing an end to the 12-day conflict which has killed more than 600 people in Iran and 28 people in Israel (archived link).
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Screenshot of the false TikTok post captured on June 23, 2025, with a red X added by AFP
The same footage was also viewed millions of times in similar X posts.
But the video does not show an air defence system destroyed by Iran.
Unrelated video
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same footage posted on TikTok on April 25, weeks before the start of the Iran-Israel war (archived link).
The clip was posted by the user "hamidhudson937", whose handle can be seen in the top-left corner of the falsely shared video.
The video used in the false posts appears to be a slowed down version of the TikTok clip, and onlookers can be more clearly heard saying in Malay: "The gas cylinder is flying."
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Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the TikTok video posted in April (right)
Subsequent keyword searches on Google led to similar footage of the blaze posted on TikTok on April 24 with the Malay-language caption, "A factory fire in Senai's Desa Idaman" (archived link).
AFP geolocated the factory to an industrial town in southern Malaysia (archived link).
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Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and Google Street View imagery (right), with corresponding elements highlighted by AFP
Local media outlets Buletin TV3 and The Sun reported that three men were injured in the fire (archived here and here).
AFP has previously debunked other false claims related to the Iran-Israel war.
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