On October 20 and 21, 2023, Georgian- (1;2;3) and Russian-language (1;2;3;4) Facebook accounts and pages (1;2) published information about the burning of the Israeli Embassy in Bahrain. A video accompanying the posts shows up to 20 people allegedly throwing “Molotov cocktails” at the building, which is engulfed in flames.
The video is being circulated with a false description. The footage used by the authors of the video was taken at the November 2012 protest on the Bahraini island of Sitra, and the protesters were not attacking the Israeli embassy, but the police station. Therefore, the video does not depict an attack on the Israeli embassy during the Israel-Hamas war.
Using the video frame reverse search method, we learn that in 2012, Bahraini protesters threw “Molotov cocktails” at the police building. According to a video uploaded to YouTube on December 30, 2012, demonstrators in Bahrain attacked a police station on the island of Sitra, south of the capital Manama. According to Revolution Bahrain, the Molotov cocktail attack on the police compound on November 3, 2012, occurred after Professor Hassan Mushaima’s health deteriorated in Al-Khalifia prison.
A United Press International article published on November 5, 2012, stated that approximately 60 masked youngsters damaged government property in several cities in Bahrain after the government banned rallies and public gatherings. According to the agency, some young people threw Molotov cocktails at the Sitra police station. Foreign fact-checking platforms (reuters.com; leadstories.com; afp.com) also checked the video spread on social networks. An Israeli official told Reuters that protests had taken place in front of the embassy in Bahrain since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, but that the building had not been set on fire. Also, according to him, the claim that the video shows the Israeli embassy in Bahrain is not true.
The embassy of Israel in Bahrain was opened in September 2021 to normalize relations after the Abraham Accords signed between Israel and Arab countries. It is located on the 29th floor of the skyscraper “World Trade Center” in the capital Manama.
As for the police building, which was attacked by protesters with Molotov cocktails, it is located on the island of Sitra, south of Manama, and has no visual similarity or functional connection with the Israeli embassy.
In October 2023, following the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the State of Israel evacuated its embassies in Bahrain, Jordan, and Morocco amid growing protests in the Arab states. On October 13, 2023, an anti-Israel protest actually took place in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, although the participants did not try to burn down the building.
About the Sources:
False information spread by Davit Lortkifanidze, a member of “Zneoba,” through his Facebook accounts (1;2), has been debunked by “Myth Detector” a number of times in the past. In addition, according to various accounts, he was also involved in several discrediting campaigns.
The Facebook page “Third World War” was created on August 2, 2016. The page is linked to a Telegram channel with the same name, which, in turn, has the name “aleksandretskitishvili” in the profile link.
The Facebook page regularly publishes anti-Western, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Semitic posts. In addition, the information disseminated by the user has been labeled as false by fact-checkers in the past.
Facebook user Валентина Кушнерева regularly publishes anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian content. The posts published by the user have been flagged as false by foreign fact-checking organizations in the past.
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