Claim: A viral video supposedly shows Tel Aviv towers burning after Iranian strikes.
Reality: Reverse image and video searches show the clip is from a Hong Kong high-rise fire on Nov. 26, 2025, widely reported by Reuters and other outlets. No credible Israeli reports match the footage from April 2026.
Verdict: The viral video claiming to show Tel Aviv towers burning after Iranian strikes is misattributed. The footage originates from a deadly high-rise fire in Hong Kong on Nov. 26, 2025, and is unrelated to events in Israel in April 2026.
An X user (@drhossamsamy65) posted on April 1, 2026, that heavy strikes by Iran had set multiple towers in Tel Aviv ablaze. The post included a video purportedly showing residential high-rises on fire.
A reverse image and video search traced the clip to international news coverage of a large residential-fire incident in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district on Nov. 26, 2025. Reuters published a video of the blaze under the headline, "Several dead as fire engulfs residential high-rises in Hong Kong," and the caption reported at least four fatalities as emergency services battled thick smoke.
Other outlets, including NBC Washington, used the same footage when reporting the Hong Kong fire. The match in footage and reporting date confirms the clip’s origin.
Lead Stories and other news-aggregation searches of Google News and Yahoo! News for March–April 2026 did not find any credible reports or videos from Israel that match the viral footage. While there were documented missile strikes around Tel Aviv in March and April 2026, none produced widely reported footage of multiple high-rise towers burning in the manner shown in the clip.
Key point: The video was repurposed from an earlier Hong Kong incident and does not show damage from Iranian strikes in Tel Aviv.
Reposting old or unrelated footage as recent conflict imagery fuels misinformation, escalates tensions, and misleads audiences about real-world events. Verifying the source and date of images and video is essential before sharing.
Bottom Line: The viral X post misrepresents footage from a November 2025 Hong Kong high-rise fire as evidence of Iranian strikes on Tel Aviv in April 2026. The claim is false.
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