Israel’s missile strikes against Hezbollah continued this week, as fears of an all-out regional war have intensified.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed fears on Tuesday of a wider regional war in the Middle East but said Hezbollah, which is backed and financed as a proxy force against Israel by Iran, “cannot stand alone.”
Social media has tapped into the fear that the conflict could spill out into wider war, with a photo shared on social media this week supporting a claim that an international group of mercenaries was waiting to join the conflict in support of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah fighters take part in the funeral procession of the movement’s commanders Ibrahim Mohammed Kobeissi and Hussein Ezzedine, killed a day earlier in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, on September 25. A photo shared online suggested an international fighting force supporting Hezbollah was gathering in the Golan Heights.
AFP via Getty Images
The Claim
A post on X, formerly Twitter, by user @Currentreport1, posted on September 25, 2024, stated: “⚡️BREAKING:
“About 40000 people from Syria, Iraq and Yemen are arriving at Golan Heights, awaiting Nasrallah’s call to fight.
“Syrian media also reports, a large number of Yemeni fighters arrived at the headquarters of the Syrian Army in the border area with Israel in the Daraa region.”
The post included a photo of armed men under the flag of the Fatemiyoun Division, a Syria-based, Iran-backed militia.
The Facts
A report this week in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said unnamed officials in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were concerned about mercenaries from Iraq, Yemen and Syria in the Golan Heights, ready upon Hezbollah’s call to join the fighting.
An unnamed security source also mentioned that Hezbollah was able to maintain open border crossings to Syria. Newsweek did not find any first-hand reports beyond Haaretz that repeated this claim, although, separately, leadership in Yemen’s Houthi movement has told Newsweek it would intensify support to and cooperation with Hezbollah.
Newsweek has contacted a media representative for the IDF via email for comment.
Whatever the truth behind the report, the photo accompanying the social media post is not of any such group gathering in the Golan Heights or elsewhere.
The picture has been online since 2016 and features the logo of Tasnim News Agency, a media organization controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
A translation of a report by Tasnim that features the photo says it shows members of the Fatemiyoun Division, a militia composed of Afghans mostly from the primarily Shiite Muslim Hazara ethnic minority, after a battle against elements of ISIS.
Although the social media post that used the photo this week does not explicitly state that it shows mercenaries in the Golan Heights, the lack of description or attribution could create that impression, supporting the claims that are based on unnamed sources.
The Ruling
Misleading Material.
The photo is not of an international militia group backing Hezbollah, lying in wait in the Golan Heights. The photo has been online since 2016, thought to depict the Fatemiyoun Division, a Syria-based militia.
The claim that there are 40,000 people in the Golan Heights from Iraq, Syria and Yemen waiting to join Hezbollah appears to be based on one news report based on unnamed Israeli defense sources.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team
