After fierce clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in southern Lebanon in November 2024, a photo was shared in social media posts that falsely claimed it showed an Israeli military helicopter that had been shot down. The photo in fact shows a helicopter releasing flares over Gaza and was taken by an AFP photographer in March 2019.
“Lebanon shot down its enemy’s helicopter,” read a Thai-language Facebook post shared on November 24, 2024.
The post shared a link to an article on Thai social media platform Blockdit, with a preview thumbnail showing a helicopter in mid-air surrounded by smoke.
“Israeli helicopter downed by Lebanon, scattering the remains of soldiers (onboard),” read the article’s headline.
The article claimed that, according to local media, an Israeli military chopper had been shot down by an anti-aircraft system near Khiam, a town in southern Lebanon around six kilometres (nearly four miles) from the border.
Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on November 28, 2024
The post circulated after fierce clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops near Khiam, with Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reporting an intense air and artillery bombardment of the town (archived link).
All-out war erupted in September after nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of Hamas, following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the Gaza war.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a US- and French-brokered truce that began at dawn on November 27, 2024. The ceasefire has reduced the level of fighting, but Israel has hit Hezbollah targets it says were violating the truce (archived link).
The Israel-Hezbollah war killed at least 3,961 people in Lebanon, according to the health ministry in Beirut, most of them after Israel stepped up its bombing campaign in September. On the Israeli side, the hostilities killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities said.
Similar posts making the same claim were also shared elsewhere in Thai, as well as in Indonesian and Arabic.
The photo, however, does not show a helicopter that was shot down over Khiam.
Flares over Gaza
A reverse image search on Google led to the same photo used in a report published by The Times of Israel newspaper on May 20, 2019 (archived link).
The photo is credited to AFP photographer Mohammed Abed, and its caption read: “An Israeli helicopter shoots flares over the Gaza Strip hours after a rocket from the Palestinian enclave hit a house near Tel Aviv and wounded seven people, leading to fears of a severe escalation, on March 25, 2019.”
Below is a screenshot comparison between the falsely shared photo (left) and the same photo used in The Times of Israel report (right):
Screenshot comparison between the falsely shared photo (left) and the same photo used in The Times of Israel report (right)
The photo can also be found in AFP’s photo archive.
Israel launched airstrikes in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire that landed near Tel Aviv, injuring seven Israelis, on March 25, 2019 (archived link).
Israel said it had evidence Hamas fired the rocket (archived link). A Hamas official denied it was deliberate and suggested it could have been a technical malfunction caused by a storm that hit the region.
In response Israel struck dozens of Hamas targets in Gaza, including flattening the office of Hamas chief Ismail Haniya. Seven people were wounded.
AFP has debunked other misinformation related to the Middle East conflict here.
