What was claimed
A video shows Hamas fighters praying after the recent ceasefire deal in Gaza was announced.
Our verdict
The video being shared is more than 17 years old, and unrelated to the recent announcement.
Video of Hamas fighters is not recent
A video of Hamas fighters praying and shouting “Allahu Akbar” has been shared on Facebook following the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire deal, with a caption that implies it is recent.
The video is captioned: “Hamas fighters miraculously found their missing uniforms, helmets, body armor & balaclavas. These items disappeared for 15 months while they deliberately hid among civilians & caused unimaginable casualties, but every time other Gazans & I said that, we were called ‘Zionists.’”
The war began 15 months ago, when the armed Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. A ceasefire deal, which would halt the war in Gaza and see the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, was announced on 15 January.
But the video being shared is not recent, as the captions imply. Full Fact traced it back to a package uploaded by the Associated Press dated 15 September 2007, labelled “Hamas fighters train for possible Israel attack”.
During breaking news events it’s important to consider whether videos and images shared on social media really show what they claim to. Our guides to verifying misleading videos and pictures 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 missing context because the implication that the video is recent is false.