By Daniel Adaji
A video that claims to show a major land collapse in Israel has been widely shared on WhatsApp and other social media platforms. The video also shows a man being chased by a large snake, allegedly in the same location. Is this video authentic or manipulated?
NatureFact has found that the video is false. It is a composite of different clips that have nothing to do with Israel or a land collapse. The video was created using a standard JPEG library that is commonly used by many applications and platforms.
Claim: “Israel experienced a major land collapse”
Findings
To verify the video, NatureFact used several tools and techniques, such as Invid, Google Reverse Image Search, and keyword search. These tools revealed that the video was manipulated and comprised different slices of images fused together to create the narration of land collapse in Israel.
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NatureFact also used the keyword “ground collapse in Israel” and found no trace of such online. A disaster of such magnitude as claimed by the video could have been reported by several media organization whose base are mostly online however, that is not the case here.
Different key frames of the video were tested on Google Reverse Image Search. The result showed that several key frames of the video had been used in other contents online. For instance, the key frame with the man being chased by a suspected python was used to describe a comic in South America. The post was made by Oldspring on TikTok in August 2023. The post had 529 likes, 13 comments and 106 bookmarks.
Another post on Instagram with 15,910 likes claimed the python appeared in South America.
Although NatureFact could not independently verify whether there was an actual land collapse in Israel at the time the post was made, the results of the verification revealed that video was manipulated to push a narrative especially at this time when Israel is at war with Palestine.
Verdict: False
The video claiming the land collapse occurred in Israel was manipulated.
