Fake story about assassination attempt on Mahmoud Abbas goes viral
A video supposedly showing an assassination attempt on Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, has been circulating widely on X (formerly Twitter) since November 7. However, it turns out that the video actually shows a police drug raid on a refugee camp near Ramallah in the West Bank on November 7.
If you only have a minute
On November 7, a number of X accounts posted a video they claimed showed an assassination attempt on Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.
However, the day the video started circulating online, the spokesperson of the Palestinian security services, Talal Dweikat, said the video actually shows a drug raid carried out by the Palestinian Civil Police Force on the Jalazone refugee camp located near Ramallah. A local media outlet also reported this.
Our team reached out to the Palestinian authorities but, for the time being, have not received a response.
The fact-check, in detail
"WARNING: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was the victim of an assassination attempt. His convoy came under fire,” reads a tweet, translated from French, posted by the X account Arab Intelligence in the middle of the afternoon on November 7. Arab Intelligence says in its bio that it is a news site for information about the Arab world.
The post, which garnered more than 700,000 views before it was taken down, also claimed that one of Abbas’s security agents was shot in the head and killed.
Hundreds of other accounts also shared this rumour – within just a few hours, the news had gone viral internationally.
