What was claimed
A video shows India recently launching a missile attack on Pakistan.
Our verdict
False. This video dates back to at least October 2023.
Old video shared with caption claiming it shows Indian missile strikes on Pakistan
A video is being shared on social media alongside claims it shows missiles recently launched by India on Pakistan. But this video dates back to at least October 2023 and is unrelated to the recent conflict.
Posts shared on Facebook and Instagram show a series of explosions at night. Both have captions saying: “#BREAKING: Pakistan Army confirms attack by India. India has launched an attack on Pakistan”.
However, this video has been online since at least 13 October 2023, when it was described as depicting Israeli air strikes on Gaza. Full Fact has not been able to independently verify this footage.
Nevertheless, it is true that early on Wednesday 7 May India launched a series of strikes on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. According to Pakistan, Muzaffarabad and Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir were hit as well as Bahawalpur in the Punjab province. India said it struck nine militant positions.
The Indian defence ministry said the strikes were part of a “commitment” to hold those responsible “accountable” for an attack which took place at a popular beauty spot in Indian-administered Kashmir on 22 April and left 25 Indians and one Nepali national dead. Pakistan has denied any involvement in last month’s attack.
Before sharing videos like this that you see on social media, take a moment to consider whether they come from a trusted source, and whether they could have been altered or miscaptioned. Our guide to spotting misleading videos online can help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the video dates back to at least October 2023 and does not show a recent missile attack launched by India on Pakistan.