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The clip was viewed more than 6. 9 million times as the standoff between Israel and the Palestinian army organization in Gaza dragged on into November. It was later removed, but other iterations spread across TikTok.
The Israeli military said its ground forces had tightened the siege of Gaza City, a Hamas stronghold, whose fighters killed another 1,400 people — mostly civilians — and took about 240 hostages in an unprecedented attack on Oct. 7, according to Israeli officials.
The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry said about a month of Israeli bombardment had killed more than 10,000 people in the Palestinian territory, most of them women and children.
But the photographs of the floods destroying cars and structures have nothing to do with the war and were filmed from Israel.
Both clips date back to the March 11, 2011, tsunami that ravaged Japan, a series of searches for opposing symbols and keywords revealed.
The 2011 tsunami triggered a major earthquake that struck the coast, generating waves that tossed ships inland, sent water over levees, triggered a nuclear crisis and left more than 18,500 people dead or missing.
The first TikTok footage, showing Japanese posters on the streets, comes from an AFP report months into the crisis when debris reached the United States and Canada (archived here).
An AFP voice-over says in the video: “Up to 20 million tonnes of debris may have been washed into the Pacific. “
Meanwhile, TikTok’s shot of the moment inverts photographs of the tsunami that hit the city of Miyako that were published via Japan News Network (archived here), among other programs.
The buildings and other elements in the video appear to match Google Maps Street View photographs of a port in the city (archived here).
AFP has already verified other social media posts that distort photographs of the tsunami.
AFP also debunked misinformation about the war between Israel and Hamas.