At the end of September 2024, Telegram channels reported that after the news about the death of Hassan Nasrallah appeared, thousands of Lebanese took to the streets of Lebanese cities and began to sing and have fun. We have checked the video used to confirm this information.
Video of a girl singing Julia Boutros' song "We are revolution and rage" surrounded by a crowd with Lebanese flags, began spreading on September 28 on Telegram in channels such as "Nevzorov" (525,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) "Pozdnyakov 3.0"(350,000), "Operation Z"(96,000), "Z-News | Army 🅉 18+"(69,000), "Political circus" (57,000), "Informant" (37,000) and "BILD in Russian"(20,000). The video also became popular in X, where one of the tweets dialed over 400,000 views. In the captions for the video they write that this is how the Lebanese rejoice at the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
On the morning of September 28, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announcedthat the previous afternoon, Hezbollah leaders, including its head Hassan Nasrallah, were killed during an airstrike on Beirut. Later the death of its leader confirmed and the group itself. By data Lebanese Ministry of Health, a total of six people were killed and about 90 more were injured as a result of the strike.
Some sources (for example, Bild in Russian) published the viral video several hours after the IDF statement, although the events depicted in the video take place in the evening. The strike that killed Nasrallah actually took place the previous afternoon, but then spread information that the Hezbollah leader managed to escape. In addition, in the background of the video you can see a gas station information board with fuel prices: 25,700 and 25,100 Lebanese pounds. This indicates that the video is old. Over the past few years, the Lebanese national currency has depreciated greatly, and fuel prices in this country have risen sharply and are no longer measured in five figures - for example, on September 27, 2024, AI-98 gasoline in Beirut was worth it 1,446,000 Lebanese pounds for 20l.
“Verified” studied the video using a facial recognition service PimEyes. Judging by the results of the analysis, the heroine of the video is graphic designer Reem Khattar, who now lives in Dubai. On the evening of September 29, the girl confirmed in Instagram And TikTok, that she was captured in the viral video, but stressed that the recording was not related to Nasrallah’s death. “Friends, do not believe fake videos and the information they spread,” writes Khattar. “They use my video from 2020 and say that my friends and I are celebrating the assassination of a political figure. This is an old video from the Lebanese revolution, I don’t live in Lebanon now.”
Original video by Khattar published on TikTok on the night of January 19-20, 2020, but it could have been taken down earlier: judging by the girl’s Instagram account, she actively participated in street protests in Lebanon in October 2019.
Protests in Lebanon started October 17, 2019, after the authorities announced plans to introduce several new taxes, including on calls via WhatsApp and other instant messengers. Street demonstrations lasted several months and led to the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri and formation new government (which, however, lasted only a few months - until a new wave protests, which rose after a major explosion in the port of Beirut).
Thus, the viral video does not depict public festivities in Lebanon that began after the death of the Hezbollah leader, but one of the protests that took place in this country in 2019–2020.
Cover photo: Pexels
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