Claim: Social media video claims it shows Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas during the recent Hamas-Israel war.
Fact: The claim is misleading because the video is from 2016 in Turkey, when footage of arrested officers was broadcast on TV after a failed military coup.
On 9 October 2023, a Facebook user posted a video (archived) with the Sindhi language caption,
حماس يرغمال اسرائيلي فوج جي اعلي قيادت جي وڊيو جاري ڪري ڇڏي
Translated [Hamas released a video of the top leadership of the Israeli army held hostage.]
The 1-minute video shows a group of men standing and talking in a foreign language, stating their names and designation.
Hamas — a Palestinian Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip — used its armed wing, the Izzeddin al-Qassam Brigades in the 7 October 2023 attack, formally named Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. In his response, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told (archive) residents of the area to evacuate as his country’s forces would “turn all Hamas hideouts into rubble”. The Israeli bombardment of Gaza continues, as of writing time.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check used reverse image search tools to ascertain that this video is old. Google Lens results showed a news article published by the Daily Mail UK on 18 July 2016. The headline reads, “Traitors on parade: Army masterminds behind Turkey coup appear on TV with their hands bound – as EU claims Erdogan list of 3,000 names to be arrested was prepared BEFORE uprising.”
The article features images from the same footage as that of the misleading video.
Daily Mail UK published the same image in 2016
It also linked footage from the Turkish news outlet Daily Sabah on 18 July 2016. The Daily Sabah also posted the video on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption, “Masterminds of #FailedCoup in Turkey being registered at Ankara Police HQ before the interrogation process.” It shows the same video and the men were accused and arrested for being part of the military coup against the government and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Sun also published a story on the Turkish military coup on 18 July 2016. The article features the same screengrab from the video. The articles show that the footage was originally captured by Anadolu Agency and their watermark can be seen in the footage as well.
Screengrab of The Sun news article published in 2016
Virality
The misleading claim on Facebook received 1.8 million views and 52k likes. The archived versions can be seen here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: A video of the Turkish masterminds behind the failed military coup from 2016 was falsely shared as Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas amid recent escalations.