Recently, a container ship owned by an Israeli billionaire came under attack by a suspected Iranian drone in Indian Ocean as Israel wages war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Amid this, a photo showing a burning cargo with massive flames is doing the rounds on social media. Many users claim that an Israeli ship was hit by an Iranian drone.
A Facebook user shared this image and wrote, “ख़बर है कि “ईरानियन ड्रोन” ने एक इजरायली जहाज़ को निशाना बनाया है…जहाज़ पानी के बीचो बीच धूं धूं कर के जल रहा है.”
This Facebook post can be seen here.
It is being widely shared on Facebook and X with a similar claim.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the post, and found it to be false.
Running a Reverse Image Search, the NM team spotted the viral image in a report of Sky News, dated June 13, 2019, with a title: “US blames Iran for oil tanker attacks in Gulf of Oman.” According to the report, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has accused Iran of being behind attacks on two oil tankers. The US intelligence believed that the attacks were part of a wider pattern.
The same image was also found in a report by Fox News, dated June 13, 2019. As per the report, the case dates back to June 2019, when an oil tanker belonging to an Israeli company was allegedly attacked off the coast of Oman and the ship caught fire. We also found the viral image in a report by Money Control, dated November 16, 2022. It is to be noted that the recent Israel-Palestine conflict started in October 2023, clearly suggesting that the viral image is quite old.
Thus, we can conclusively say that the viral image is not related to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.
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