A video shared on Facebook purportedly shows armed forces engaged in the recent conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Verdict: False

The footage actually shows a military exercise in Russia in 2020.

Fact Check:

Israel and Hamas were engaged in violent clashes from May 10 until a ceasefire brought the fighting to an end on May 21, according to BBC News. Over 240 people in the Gaza Strip and 13 Israelis were killed in the violence, Reuters reported.

Now, a May 20 video on Facebook claims to show footage of the “Israel and Palestine War.” The video consists of several clips and shows what appears to be military personnel loading rockets into a launcher and then the rockets being launched while tanks fire in unison. (Does This Video Show Turkish Military Convoys Entering Palestinian Territories In May 2021?)

The video does not, however, show events from the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas. Through a reverse image search of key frames, Check Your Fact found that each clip included in the Facebook video was published on YouTube by the Russian Defense Ministry in September 2020. According to the videos’ descriptions, the footage shows portions of the 2020 Caucasus military exercise in Russia. In one of the clips, a soldier can clearly be heard speaking Russian, further proving the video does not show footage from Israel or Palestinian territories.

The Russian military’s 2020 Caucasus exercise was conducted from September 21 to September 26 and spanned parts of Russia’s Southern Military District, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, according to RealClearDefense. The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin observed part of the exercise in person, and a photo of him doing so can be found on Getty Images.

During the Israel-Hamas violence, Putin called for a solution to the conflict, saying, “We consider imperative the end of violent acts,” according to Al Jazeera.