News18, social media users share 2-month old visuals of blast in Iranian city as footage from June conflict with Israel
A 17-second clip showing a cloud of smoke emanating from an explosion in an urban area is viral on social media with claims that it shows Iran being bombarded by Israel. Some claim the video of the explosion is from Ahvaz in Iran, while others claim it shows an explosion at the Bushehr airport.
The conflict between the two escalated after Israel targeted Iran’s nuclear and military structures from warplanes and drones on June 13; Iran soon retaliated with strikes. Since then, several unverified visuals have been circulating on social media platforms with claims they are from either of the two countries .
A June 22 report by News18 titled, “Bushehr Airport Hit By Israel As Explosion Rocks Iran Province Housing Nuclear Site,” featured a screengrab from the above clip. (Archive)
X user Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) also posted the same video on June 22, claiming that the visual depicted an explosion in Ahvaz. (Archive)
Several other users on X, such as @mog_russEN, @World_At_War_6, @thecsrjournal, and news outlet EurAsia Daily, used the viral clip claiming it showed footage of an explosion in Iran amid the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict.
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Fact Check
After breaking down the clip into multiple keyframes, we ran a reverse image search on a few of them. This led us to an Instagram carousel post by an account @qatarday from April 26, 2025. The fourth slide in the carousel, has the now-viral clip.
The caption of the post reads, “Four dead, over 500 injured as ‘massive’ explosion hits Iran’s Bandar Abbas”. Bandar Abbas is a port city on the southern coast of Iran.
We also found the video shared by X account, @JasonMBrodsky, on April 26, which also said the explosion was from Iran’s Bandar Abbas.
Taking a cue from the above posts, we checked for news reports with relevant keywords from that time and found that several outlets had covered it.
According to an April 27 report by the BBC, nearly 28 individuals were killed and 800 injured in the explosion in Shahid Rajaee in the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas. The report carried a video captured by an individual who recorded it from his car when the explosion took place. It has the same smoke pattern as is seen in the viral clip.
Al Jazeera also used a clip from the same location, recorded at a different angle. Here, too, the smoke pattern is the same.
Below is a comparison of the visuals aired by BBC and Al Jazeera with the viral clip. As can be seen, in all three screenshots, the smoke pattern is similar.
Thus it was clear that the viral clip of the explosion is neither from Ahvaz nor from Bushehr but an explosion that happened in Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas city in Iran two months before the June conflict.
However, it should be noted that Iranian cities Ahvaz and Bushehr did suffer from Israeli strikes.
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