2024 video of Israeli airstrike on Yemen goes viral as Iran attack on Saudi Arabia

A video showing a massive fire surrounding buildings is going viral on social media with the claim that it shows Iran’s drone strikes at US bases in Saudi Arabia. The video surfaced amid escalating regional tensions, which include coordinated strikes by the U.S. and Israel on Iran, as well as Iranian drone and missile retaliations across the Middle East.

The caption on the video states, A direct hit has been reported on a key oil facility in Saudi Arabia amid rapidly escalating tensions in the Middle East.

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Factcheck:

We started our investigation with a reverse image search on Google and the results led us to an extended version of the viral video as part of a video report by News9 shared on 22 July 2024. Similar visuals are seen at the timestamp of 00:47 mark. The caption states, “This video features dramatic footage of a massive fire in Yemen’s Hodeidah, which erupted following an Israeli airstrike”.

Moving forward, we also found another YouTube video by Rasd News Network uploaded a similar video on 20 July 2024. It states that a massive fire broke out as a result of the Israeli bombing of the port of Hodeidah in Yemen.

Upon further search, we found many media reports regarding this incident. According to Al Jazeera, Israel conducted airstrikes on Hodeidah port city on 20 July 2024, targeting what it called military sites linked to the Houthis. The Ministry of Health, which operates in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, said three people were killed and eighty-seven wounded.

There are reports that an oil refinery of leading global energy and chemicals firm Aramco has halted operations at its Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia after a drone, suspected to be fired by Iran, today. But this viral video does is not from Saudi Arabia.

So based on these evidences, we can understand that this footage shows massive fire in Yemen’s Hodeidah, which erupted following an Israeli airstrike in July 2024.

Conclusion

Fact crescendo found that the claim made along with the viral video to be False. This video shows Israeli airstrikes in Yemen. It is unrelated to the ongoing tensions between Iran and US-Israel.