Fact Check: Israeli tanks burn in South Lebanon? No, video clips are old

Hyderabad: After Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was reportedly killed by a joint Israeli-American air strike in February 2026, Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into northern Israel.

Israel retaliated with air strikes, followed by the ground offensive. On March 24, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, announced plans for his country’s military to take control of Southern Lebanon, as part of their campaign against Hezbollah. Katz said that the Israeli troops would establish a security zone up to the Litani River, about 30 km from the Lebanon-Israel border.

Amid the crisis, a video has gone viral with the claim that it shows Israel’s tanks on fire in the Southern Lebanon area.

The video has two clips; the first one is 8 seconds long, showing a military tank on fire, surrounded by smoke. The second is 30 seconds long, which pans across a hilly region with houses as smoke rises in some places.

Sharing the video on X, a user wrote, “Footage shows Israeli tanks burning in southern Lebanon.” (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. We did not find any news outlet reporting about the video in connection with the recent Israeli military action in Southern Lebanon.

Clip 1

Reverse image searches of the video keyframes led us to a report published on South Front. The website positions itself as a platform for an independent, volunteer-driven analysis group and is registered in Russia.

We found an extended version of the clip posted to this website in a report published on May 11, 2024. The report detailed a Russian military offensive in the Kharkiv region. The video was shared with the caption ‘Ukrainian tank on fire’.

The video contained a logo and a link to a Telegram post. Following this link, we found the same video from the South Front website shared on a Telegram channel ‘Старше Эдды’. On the same day, the video was shared with the caption, “A burning Ukrainian Armed Forces tank, Liptsy direction, Kharkiv region. The ‘Hammer of the North’ is gaining momentum.”

An image of the same tank from a different angle was also shared with the caption, “Kharkiv Slobozhanshchina. Northern fighters destroy a Ukrainian Armed Forces tank that tried to hinder the advance of the ‘Northern Storm’.” The North and Northern here are terms possibly used for the Russian army amongst the country’s online circles.

It is clear that the video clip of the tank burning is not from the recent Israel-Lebanon military actions; it is an older video. However, we were unable to independently verify the actual date and place of the clip’s origin. However, we can conclude that the viral clip has been circulating online at least since May 11, 2024.

Clip 2

The second video clip shows hilly regions with houses while smoke rises in some places. Reverse image search of this video led us to an X post by user ‘MenchOsint’. The same video was posted on October 17, 2023. The caption states, “Now fights on the Lebanon-Israeli border.”

Another X user also shared the video on the same day. The caption on this video also states that the video is from the Israel-Lebanon border.

The clashes mentioned in these posts, along the Israel-Lebanon border, occurred as part of a wider escalation that followed the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel conflict on October 7, 2023.

We were unable to independently verify the actual date and place of the clip’s origin. However, the viral video has been circulating online since October 23, 2023.

Conclusion

The viral video contains two clips, both of which are older than the recent Israeli military action in Lebanon. Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false.