A video shows Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu running to a bunker during recent attacks on Israel.
False. The video was first shared by Mr Netanyahu in 2021 and shows him running to a vote in Israel’s parliament while leader of the opposition.
A widely shared video supposedly shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu running to a “bunker” during recent missile strikes on the country. But the clip is several years old and actually shows him running to vote in Israel’s parliament.
The clip shows the back of Mr Netanyahu as he runs along a corridor and through a room. It has been shared on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, YouTube and Threads in recent days with captions including: “Leaked video of Israeli Leader Netanyahu running to the Presidential Nuclear Bunker! PS. This is what day 2 of WW3 looked like.”
Some posts have overlaid text written in Arabic (translated by Google) saying: “Urgent: The moment Netanyahu fled to shelters [sic] after the beginning of the Iranian attack on Tel Aviv,” while another post also suggests it was taken during a recent missile attack on the country from Iran.
Iran reportedly fired more than 180 missiles at Israel on 1 October, and one Palestinian person was killed in the West Bank by falling debris. Most missiles were intercepted but the Israeli military said some of its air bases had been hit, though added that the air force’s operational abilities had not been affected.
Hezbollah said it was responsible for a series of overnight attacks against Israel as Israel carried out airstrikes on Lebanon’s capital Beirut, and a ground invasion in southern Lebanon.
But this clip is not related to recent events in the region and does not show Mr Netanyahu running for shelter.
Mr Netanyahu’s official X account shared a longer version of the clip on 13 December 2021 with the caption in Hebrew (translated by Google) saying: “I am always proud to run for you. It was taken half an hour ago in the Knesset,” which refers to Israel’s parliament. He was leader of the opposition at the time and was reportedly running to a vote.
It’s important to consider whether posts on social media show what they claim to before sharing them, and our guide to verifying videos online offers some tips that may be helpful.
Miscaptioned videos are often shared online, especially during significant news stories. We’ve written about many other misleading claims about Mr Netanyahu, including an image supposedly showing him on a ventilator that was almost certainly created using artificial intelligence (AI) and false claims his psychiatrist took his own life. You can find more of our articles relating to the conflict in the Middle East here.
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 this video is from 2021 and does not show Mr Netanyahu running to a bunker.
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