Renewed fighting between the United States and Iran in July 2026 set off a torrent of falsely shared visuals online, including footage of a burning building that posts claimed showed US missiles hitting an Iranian target. The video, frequently misrepresented as a scene from the Middle East conflict, in fact depicts a fire that engulfed a public market in the United Arab Emirates in August 2020.
“The US fired 1,800 missiles at Iran. Every single missile hit the target,” says a post written in Chinese and shared on the Chinese social media platform NetEase Video on July 23, 2026.
The video shows cars passing by a burning structure that emits thick black smoke.
Screenshot of false NetEast post, taken on July 24, 2026, with a red X added by AFP
The video circulated elsewhere on X and spread online in other languages such as Hindi and English.
The posts emerged online as the US military carried out strikes on Iran, in the largest rekindling of the almost five-month-old war since an April ceasefire ( archived link).
Iran has retaliated by firing at US military facilities in the Gulf.
However, the circulating video is unrelated to the Middle East conflict and had in fact been previously misrepresented as an Iranian attack on a Dubai gas facility and a blaze at the Dubai International Airport.
A reverse image search on Google found the same clip shared on Facebook on August 7, 2020 ( archived link).
“A massive fire in Ajman, Dubai,” reads the Nepali-language caption.
Gulf News, an English-language publication in Dubai, reported on the fire that broke out at a public market in the city of Ajman on August 5, 2020. About 125 stalls were destroyed in the blaze, but no casualties were recorded ( archived link).
Another clip of the fire was posted by the Ajman police, which said the blaze caused parts of the building to collapse ( archived link).
Google Maps street imagery matches the area in Ajman seen in the video ( archived link).
Screenshot comparison between false X post (L) and Google Maps street view of same location in Ajman, with similar elements highlighted by AFP
AFP has debunked more videos and images falsely linked to the conflict in the Middle East here.