Claim: Image shows explosion resulting from Israel’s targeted airstrikes in Iran on 26 October.
Fact: The image is old and shows a fire that broke out at an oil refinery in Tehran in June 2021.
On 26 October, X user @RadarHits posted a picture (archive) apparently showing an explosion somewhere in Iran, after Israel’s targeted airstrikes on the country in October. The caption reads, “BREAKING: Reports that Israel’s attack on Iran started. Explosions in Iran reported.”
On 1 October, Iran fired nearly 200 missiles towards Israel, which were intercepted. The attack was in retaliation to Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon that killed Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Abbas Nilforoshan.
Israel’s invasion and the past year of war has displaced around 1.2 million people in Lebanon and killed approximately 2,700 according to the latest update from the Lebanese Health Ministry as of October 2024.
On 26 October, Israel carried out retaliatory targeted airstrikes in Iran aimed at military bases in the country’s various provinces.
The escalation between the two countries has sparked fears of an all-out regional war in the Middle East.
Fact or Fiction?
Users shared this image in April 2024 when Israel carried out a retaliatory aerial attack on the Iranian province of Isfahan. This followed Iran’s retaliatory attack of 300 missiles and drones fired at Israel after the bombing of Iran’s embassy in Syria, killing top Iranian commanders.
Soch Fact Check debunked the image when it surfaced then, claiming to show the site of an explosion after Israel’s aerial attack.
According to Daily Mail’s June 2021 report which carried the exact image (second further down the article), the photo shows a “huge blaze” that broke out at “a key oil refinery south of Tehran” after an explosion that took place due to a gas leak.
We also found the original photo on Getty Images’ from June 2021, where it is described as an image of “smoke billowing from the site of a refinery fire in the Iranian capital Tehran.”
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the resurfaced image from the claim has no connection to Israel’s recent targeted attacks on Iran.
Virality
The X post (archive) garnered 461K views and was liked 4,400 times
It also appeared on X here, here, here (first image), here (first image), here, here, here.
On Threads here.
Conclusion: An image claiming to show an explosion after Israel’s airstrikes in Iran on 26 October, is old and, in fact, shows a fire that broke out at an oil refinery in Tehran in June 2021.
Background image in cover photo: ISPI
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