Beirut blast conspiracy tales abound, with faked clips pointing blame at Israel

Within hours of the Beirut mega-blast, conspiracy theories on what caused the disaster in the Lebanese capital spread like wildfire on social media.

The August 4 detonation of an abandoned shipment of ammonium nitrate in Beirut port’s Hangar 12, after an initial blast and fire, cost more than 170 lives, injured thousands and left hundreds of thousands temporarily homeless.

Images and videos were posted within minutes on social media of the atomic bomb-like explosion and its apocalyptic aftermath across the Mediterranean metropolis.

In the absence of clear-cut answers and pending the results of an official investigation, some postings have served to feed disinformation.

Volume 9

A

A video showing a missile in the sky was quickly touted as proof of an attack by Lebanon’s former wartime enemy and neighbor Israel.

But verification by AFP shows the missile image was digitally pasted into the video, after several earlier postings of the same footage which showed no such projectile.

video

A video showing a missile in the sky was quickly touted as proof of an attack by Lebanon’s former wartime enemy and neighbor Israel.

But verification by AFP shows the missile image was digitally pasted into the video, after several earlier postings of the same footage which showed no such projectile.

showing a missile in the sky was quickly touted as proof of an attack by Lebanon’s former wartime enemy and neighbor Israel.

But verification by AFP shows the missile image was digitally pasted into the video, after several earlier postings of the same footage which showed no such projectile.

0%

A video showing a missile in the sky was quickly touted as proof of an attack by Lebanon’s former wartime enemy and neighbor Israel.

But verification by AFP shows the missile image was digitally pasted into the video, after several earlier postings of the same footage which showed no such projectile.