Jagoron News falsely shares US wildfire footage as destruction of Israeli ship
Jagoron News recently posted a video on Facebook claiming that an Israeli cargo ship was destroyed by a sea mine while secretly crossing the Strait of Hormuz. However, a Dismislab fact-check found the claim to be false. The footage shows a family taking refuge in the sea in 2023 to escape a wildfire in the US state of Hawaii.
The news outlet Jagoron News posted a 14-second video from its Facebook page with the caption, “Israeli cargo ship completely destroyed after being hit by a sea mine while secretly passing through the Strait of Hormuz.” The video shows several women, men and children floating in seawater. At the same time, flames and smoke can be seen in the background. Many users were seen writing “Alhamdulillah” in the comments. Until the publication of this report, the video had been viewed more than 1.6 million times and shared 2,300 times.
Another page named Jagoron also posted the same video with the same headline. Until the publication of this report, this video had been viewed more than 750,000 times and shared nearly 350 times. The email address, WhatsApp number and website link listed on this page match the information provided on Jagoron News’s Facebook page.
In its investigation, Dismislab took keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search, finding a video posted on the X account of a person named Christopher Webb. The 28-second video, published on August 16, 2023, matches the first 14 seconds of the circulated video. In both videos, the same people can be seen floating in seawater in identical clothing and in the same positions.
According to the post’s description, the footage was recorded during wildfires on Hawaii’s Maui island. It said that Lahaina resident Jubee Bedoya went toward the ocean to escape the spreading wildfire. Along with him, a family of five also jumped into the ocean and remained floating in the ocean for two to three hours. They were among 17 people rescued by the Coast Guard, the post further stated.
Further investigation led to a news report published on the website of the US news outlet NBC Los Angeles on August 15, 2023. The scenes in the circulated video match footage appear at the 1 minute 51 second mark of the video attached to that report.
The report said that a California family saved their lives by remaining in the ocean for an extended period to escape the wildfire.
Therefore, an old video of people taking refuge in the sea to escape wildfires in Hawaii, United States, in 2023 is being circulated as footage of an Israeli ship being destroyed.
