A warning in the form of a design post has recently spread on social media, claiming that it is “a satirical post dropped by the Houthis on the residents of Tel Aviv, calling on them to evacuate”.
The post included the following: “To the residents and displaced persons in the city of Tel Aviv, you are in a dangerous combat zone. The Yemeni armed forces will act forcefully against the Nazi terrorist organizations in your area. Your stay and anyone who is in these areas is putting their lives in danger. For your safety, you must evacuate immediately south to the Negev Desert area – to humanitarian areas”.
Kashif verified the post and found that it is old and the claim is misleading. By searching the QR code scanner included in the post, it was found that it directs users to the channel of “activist Hamza Al-Masry” on Telegram. By searching Al-Masry’s channel, Kashif’s team found that he shared the post on 19 July 2024, with the following text: “Dear Yemen”.
Kashif contacted Palestinian activist Hamza Al-Masry, who confirmed that he designed the post, including the QR code, to take the user to his Telegram channel several months ago, in response to the Israeli occupation’s method of evacuating neighborhoods and residential areas in the Gaza Strip.
He added that he had not published it recently, while accounts and websites re-circulated it after the Houthis bombed Tel Aviv with a missile on Sunday, 15 September 2024.
Using “Google Images”, Kashif’s team found that news websites, “Anbaa 24” and “Al-Ittihad Press” published the circulating post on 22 July 2024, captioned: “For the first time, warning brochures are issued by the Yemeni Armed Forces to all residents of the city of “Tel Aviv” and they demand that they move to the Negev Desert”.
Kashif’s team also searched the Yemeni Military Media account on “X”, and the official account of the Houthi spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, and found that the two accounts did not share the warning post.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced in a statement published on 19 July 2024 via his account on “X” that a military operation had been carried out against an important target in Tel Aviv with a drone named Jaffa.
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, leader of the Ansar Allah group (Houthis), stated in his speech on 21 July 2024 that the Jaffa (Tel Aviv) area is no longer safe for the Israeli occupation.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced on 15 September 2024 the implementation of a qualitative operation targeting a military site in Jaffa using a “hypersonic” missile. He pointed out that the missile traveled a distance estimated at 2,040 kilometers in 11 and a half minutes.
