This historic Orthodox church in Gaza was not destroyed by bombardments

Issued on: 12/10/2023 – 20:37

5 min

If you only have a minute

• Since October 9, many Internet users have been claiming that a video of the bombardments in Gaza showed the destruction of the Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius, a historic place of worship in the city. However, the church stated on Facebook the same day that it had not suffered any damage in the bombardments. 

• A reverse image search can be used to find the exact location of the video, which was filmed in another part of Gaza City, as noted by the investigative collective Bellingcat.

• Several publications by pro-Palestinian or pro-Russian accounts continue to claim that the church was destroyed.

The fact-check, in detail

According to the latest figures from local authorities on October 11, more than 1,200 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7 and many buildings and homes have been destroyed by Israeli bombardment. 

Since October 9, numerous publications on TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) have also claimed that Gaza’s St. Porphyrius Orthodox Church, one of the world’s oldest Christian places of worship, was destroyed by Israeli bombardments.

In particular, several publications on X shared a video of the bombing, in which buildings destroyed by an explosion can be seen in the distance, near a tower. 

“Israeli warplanes bombed the largest Church, St. Porphyrius Orthodox Church, in Gaza,” claimed one account on X on October 9, sharing the footage.

Many other pro-Palestinian and pro-Russian Internet users also spread the word, sharing archive images of the church. On October 9, pro-Russian American Internet user Jackson Hinckle claimed on X that Israel just “blew up” what he described as “the third oldest church in the world”. His post, viewed more than 900,000 times, has since been deleted, but a screenshot has been featured on TikTok in several videos viewed more than 150,000 times on the video platform.

Church ‘untouched’, according to a church statement

But the building was in fact not impacted by the Israeli bombardments in recent days.

In a post shared on Facebook at 8:37pm on October 9, the organisation in charge of the church announced that it had remained “untouched” and was currently “being used in the service of the community and our congregation”. 

“The information circulating about the damage it has suffered is false”, the church added. 

What about the location of the video? Although the church was not hit, the footage does show the bombardments that have taken place in Gaza in recent days.

Bombardments in the video far from the church

A reverse image search can trace back the original video to the Turkish online news site Haber7.com. The video, which is longer than the excerpt posted on Twitter, shows the location where the video was taken in daylight – the shot taken in daylight on the morning of October 10 is slightly more to the left than the night shot, but similar urban elements can be seen.

From this shot, a reverse image search can be used to find other articles and online posts by journalists, including one by FRANCE 24 journalist Wassim Nasr. These new daylight angles enable us to identify the location of the video more precisely.

As a result, investigative website Bellingcat has tracked down the exact location where the footage was taken, thanks to another video from 2022. This video shows that the location where the relayed video was taken is near the white building housing the Bank of Palestine (framed in blue at the bottom right in the capture below). We confirmed this using photos found on Google Maps.

Thanks to this geolocation and the angle of view of the videos, it is possible to determine that the bombardments visible in the video shared online did not reach St. Porphyrius Church, as shown on the map below. In fact, the church is located further east than the locations filmed in the video.

Bellingcat has also been able to pinpoint precise areas of the bombings, confirming that the area hit was not that of St. Porphyrius Church:

“In geolocating footage related to the viral video claiming to show the church site, Bellingcat found evidence that strikes occurred in densely populated areas in the vicinity of several schools.”

On October 9, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a press conference that two schools belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had been hit. 

Misinformation still circulating

Following the church’s statement, several online accounts and Internet users retracted their comments or deleted their tweets. But many other publications are still online, and the video continues to circulate via new posts. 

In recent days, the misinformation has been shared by numerous pro-Palestinian accounts, which have relayed other false information on several occasions since the start of the conflict, such as Palestine Online. The pro-Palestinian account’s tweet, still accessible on October 11, has been viewed over 150,000 times since its publication on the evening of October 9. 

Internationally, several English and French pro-Russian accounts also relayed the misinformation, as did the leader of the far-right British party Britain First, Paul Golding. These publications were still online on October 11.