A video of several people throwing stuffed toys on the football pitch inside a stadium is being shared on the internet with users claiming that it shows people expressing their support for Palestine.
What have users said?: Those sharing the video have uploaded it with a caption saying, "The Football Ground became a battlefield for the Palestinians. Thank you all for taking a stand in favour of Palestine (sic)."
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)
At the time of writing this report, the video had recorded more than 99,000 views on the platform.
(More archives to similar posts can be seen here, here, and here.)
What is the truth?: The video dates back to February of this year and shows football fans throwing stuffed toys for children affected by the devastating earthquake in Turkey.
It happened during a match between Besiktas and Antalyaspor at Vodafone Park in Turkey.
What led us to the truth?: Using a video verification tool, InVID, we divided the video into several keyframes and performed a reverse image search on them.
The search directed us to a shorter and a similar version of the viral video uploaded on an Instagram handle named 'majaleh.ir'.
It was uploaded on 28 February and its caption said, "they donating them to victims of the turkey earthquakes (sic)."
Comparing both clips: We compared several keyframes from the viral video to the one uploaded on Instagram and found that both of them were from the same incident.
A comparison clearly highlights the similarities.
(Source: Viral video/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)
News reports: A report mentioned that thousands of plush toys were thrown on the pitch by fans of the Turkish football clubs, Besiktas and Antalyaspor. The incident happened on 26 February and in solidarity with the children who were affected by the devastating earthquake.
The match took place at Istanbul's Vodafone Park and it was paused at 4 minutes and 17 seconds in memory of the earthquake that struck the southern region of Turkey.
The report was published on 27 February of this year.
(Source: The Quint/Screenshot)
The report also carried a post uploaded on the official X handle of Besiktas JK. The video showed thousands of fans throwing stuffed and plush toys on the pitch as the camera pans through the entire stadium.
The video was uploaded on 26 February and its caption when translated to English said, "Let the children always laugh."
A report in BBC added that the match was paused at four minutes 17 seconds to represent the time when the first quake struck Turkey on 6 February.
The toys that were to the pitch will be given to the children in Turkey and Syria.
Conclusion: The video is old and does not show people throwing toys to express their support for Palestine.
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