Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi issues a warning to Hamas and reiterates his support to Israel.
Fact
Viral clip is old and actually shows PM Modi speaking on the 30th anniversary of diplomatic ties between India and Israel.
As Israel continues its offensive against Hamas fighters into the second month despite mounting calls for a ceasefire, a video allegedly showing India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi issuing warning to Hamas and reiterating India’s support to Israel is going viral on TikTok.
TikTok user @israel_india posted a video showing India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the people of Israel. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi warning Hamas terrorists. The relations between India and Israel are very deep. India stands with Israel.” In his address in Hindi, PM Modi says, “Namaskar and Salom (Greetings) from India to all Israeli friends. Every year, this day has a special importance to our relations. Thirty years earlier, on this day, our diplomatic relations were fully established. A new chapter had begun between the two countries. Though it was only a new chapter in our ties, the history of both the countries is very old. The people of the two countries had centuries-old bonding. For instance, it is the fundamental nature of India that people of Jew community have been living in India for centuries without facing any kind of discrimination, and the community has made an important contribution in our development. While there are significant developments taking place in the world today, India…”
The video posted on November 1 has garnered 19.2k likes, 954 users have shared it and 2790 people have commented until the time of publishing this article. The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newshchecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker took a keyframe from the viral video and ran a reverse search on it. This threw up several results. On checking a video, published on a YouTube channel named Narendra Modi, we found that the video exactly matched the viral video. We found that the video, dated January 29, 2022 was a special video message of Prime Minister Modi to mark the completion of 30 years of diplomatic relations between India and Israel.
Further, we noticed the logo of Sansad TV on the top left corner of the viral video and conducted a search on YouTube by using the clue. The search led us to an exactly same video published on the YouTube channel of Sansad TV.
We also ran a search on Google by using the relevant keywords and found several news articles about Prime Minister Modi’s special message on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Israel.
Further, we checked several news reports and his verified social media handle X (formerly Twitter) found that Prime Minister Modi said “India stands firmly with Israel in this difficult hour” and condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
Thus, our findings clearly indicate that the viral video shows Prime Minister Modi sending a special message on the 30th anniversary of India’s diplomatic relations with Israel.
Conclusion
No, the viral video doesn’t show Prime Minister Modi issuing a warning to Hamas and reiterating his support to Israel. The viral video is from last year and it actually shows PM Modi speaking on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel-India.
Result: Missing Context
Sources
Narendra Modi/YouTube Jan 29, 2022
Sansad TV/YouTube Jan 29, 2022
Print Online Jan 29, 2022
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
