advertisement
A video showing a crowd gathering on the streets is going viral online.
It further shows people surrounding the vehicle and shouting at a man who is sitting inside while others drag another person nearby.
The claim states that it shows Lebanese Druze locals who "kicked out a Hezbollah terrorist" and blamed him for launching rockets at Israel.
(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here, here, and here.)
Video is old: Yes, the video does show Druze villagers of Lebanon’s Hasbaya District stopping Hezbollah members driving through their village and blaming them for firing rockets from their village.
However, it dates back to 2021 and is not a recent incident.
How did we find out the truth?: Using Google Lens on Google Chrome, we ran a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the viral video.
This led us to an Instagram post carrying the same video and the same context.
However, the caption specified that this video is from 2021.
Taking a cue, we performed a relevant keyword search on Google and this led us to a Facebook post shared by Al Arabiya News on 7 August 2021.
Although this video was from a different angle, both the video showed the same surroundings, same people in the crowd and the same person seated inside the vehicle who was being threatened.
The video’s caption stated, “Local Druze in the south of Lebanon drags Hezbollah members out of their vehicles in the town of Hasbaya after the Iran-backed group launched rocket attacks targeting Israel from nearby areas”.
We also found a report shared by Reuters on 6 August 2021 about this incident.
It stated that Hezbollah fighters who fired rockets towards Israel from Lebanon were stopped and confronted by the locals in Chouaya area.
Conclusion: An old video from 2021 is going viral to claim that it shows Druze locals of Lebanon, stopping and confronting Hezbollah members.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)