2018 video goes viral as people watching football amid missile strikes in Iraq

The situation in Iraq is extremely volatile due to the escalation of a regional conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran. Amid this, a video is being shared on social media that reportedly shows missiles in the night sky while a group of people casually watches a football game in an open field. The caption of the post states, “Bunch of Iraqis just chilling, playing football, watching the war between Iran, America and Israel, probably reminiscing about a time when it was then getting bombed”. 

Users who share the video claims that it is a recent video from Iraq, where missiles streak across the sky while locals below continue playing football as if nothing is happening. 

Let’s check the truth

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Factcheck:

Our investigation began with a reverse image search on Google and the results led us to a post on X uploaded in 2018 featuring the same video. The tweet states, “The football league in Samtah Governorate in Jazan—they’re playing while rockets fly overhead, and they’re not afraid at all, and life goes on as normal”.

This indicates that the video is not recent and not related to the ongoing Middle East tensions.

Moving forward, we found a report from August 2018 by Saudi media outlet Almowaten. The report included the same clip as shown in the viral post. The report stated that the video showed missiles being launched from Saudi territory in Samtah Governorate in Jazan to intercept Houthi projectiles before they reached their targets inside Saudi Arabia. It also quoted residents of the area who told the news outlet that they were living their daily lives normally, and have become familiar to such incidents.

Upon further search, we came across a news report published by a Vietnam-based news portal around the same time in August 2018, which also carried the same video. That report states that the video was from Yemen, showing football players near the port city of Hodeidah calmly continuing their game while missiles lit up the night sky overhead.

So, all this evidence indicates that the video is old and does not show the current situation of Iraq. It has no link to the recent crisis in the Middle East.

Conclusion

Fact crescendo found that the claim made along with the viral video to be False. This is an old video and it dates back to 2018 and has no connection to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.