A misleading video is actively circulating on social networks showing an unknown person raising an Israeli flag in a square at night. When the clip was posted, it was claimed that this happened in the city of Bosra-esh-Sham in Daraa province in southern Syria after fierce clashes, and that the action was carried out by the "8th Brigade" of field commander Ahmed al-Awad, allegedly calling for Israeli intervention. The video gained wide traction and was re-posted in various versions linking it to the tense situation in the region to create the impression of new military-political developments.
Fact-checking, including reverse image search of the footage and analysis of the publication history, showed that the video is not related to Bosra-esh-Sham. The incident actually took place in March 2025 in the city of Es-Suweida, where unknown individuals placed a flag on the "Doar al-Ankud" square. Local residents quickly gathered, removed and burned the flag, which was captured on other videos confirming the earlier date of the event. The original versions of the clip did not contain any mentions of Bosra or the "8th Brigade" — those details were added later in reposts to artificially link the footage to current field events and steer the narrative in a desired direction.
Such materials are often actively spread precisely during periods of escalation and fighting, when the public is actively looking for visual explanations of what is happening on the ground. This creates opportunities to repost old recordings to fill an information vacuum. These videos are also used to promote ready-made political or sectarian narratives by falsely tying them to current events, contrary to chronological and geographical facts. As a result, this contributes to the entrenchment of biased interpretations instead of providing an accurate picture of reality.
Full version: رفع العَلم الإسرائيلي.. فيديو مضلل لإشعال التوتر في الجنوب السوري