An old video circulates with false claims of an Iranian attack on Dubai
A video is circulating on social media with the claim that Dubai has been attacked. However, a fact-check by Dismislab reveals that the video was posted on Facebook as early as 2024. Additionally, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had posted the video from their verified X account in 2025 with recent claims.
On February 28, a video was posted from a verified Facebook profile named ABM Serajul Hossain. The caption read, “Dubai under attack.” As of publication of this report, the post has garnered at least 4,800 reactions, and the video has been viewed more than 89,000 times.
The video was posted with the same claim from multiple personal Facebook profiles (1, 2, 3, 4), pages, and groups. One post circulated with the claim read, “Dubai under attack! Cowardly child of a coward. This is entirely a tourist area. Iran launched a drone attack targeting this area. The drone struck a place near the Burj Khalifa, which is a purely civilian location. There is no military base here, and there never was. For the stability of the Middle East, the fall of Khomeini has become essential.”. The video was also seen circulating on Instagram with the same claim.
A reverse image search of various keyframes led Dismislab to a report published by NDTV on June 14, 2025. The report was titled: “Video: Iron Dome in Action, Scenes of Intercepting Iranian Missiles in Israel’s Sky.” The report stated, “The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shared footage of multiple ballistic missiles fired by Iran toward Tel Aviv late Friday night. In the video posted on the social media platform X, the night sky is seen filled with ballistic missiles fired by Iran. Interceptors were launched from Israel’s missile defense system to avoid any kind of damage on the surface or ground.”
The Israel Defense Forces’ post was found on their verified X account via the report. “Unedited footage: Iran fired multiple ballistic missiles toward Israel over the last few hours. The IDF cannot and will not allow Iran to carry out attacks on our civilians.” The Israel Defense Forces posted this with the caption on June 14, 2025. This video is an exact match to the circulating video.
It was observed that X users added a Community Note to this post. Mohammed Zubair, founder of the Indian fact-checking organization Alt News, made a post regarding this on the same day from his verified X account. The caption of the post was: “The first part of the video is from 2024. Why is the IDF misleading?” A screenshot of a post was found in the comments of that post, which showed that the original video was posted on October 2, 2024, from a profile named Bran Oblak Sedey.
Further verification on the Facebook profile of Bran Oblak Sedey led to the video posted on October 2, 2024. The caption of the post read: “Tel Aviv.” The circulating video is identical to this video. A search of relevant keywords showed that Israel and Iran had launched missile attacks on each other in 2024. On October 2, Iran attacked major Israeli cities with at least 180 ballistic missiles. Multiple international media reports (1, 2, 3) were found on this matter.
That is to say, the video circulating with the claim of an attack on Dubai is more than one year old and from a different location.
For context, the United States and Israel have carried out attacks on various locations in Iran, including the capital, Tehran. In response, Iran has also fired missiles at northern Israel and U.S. military bases in several Middle Eastern countries. In the ongoing conflict, the Iranian state news agency IRNA (Islamic Republic News Agency) has confirmed the news of the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
