Experts caution video alleging Hamas threat on Olympics is likely fake

As France prepared a massive security operation to protect the Olympic Games, a video purporting to depict Hamas threatening to attack Paris circulated on social media. But the Palestinian militant group has denied creating the clip, the French Interior Ministry said it was not able to verify its authenticity and experts say it appears to be part of a disinformation campaign.

"Islamist releases a video threatening the Paris Olympics," says the caption of a July 23, 2024 Instagram video.

The clip depicts a person wearing a keffiyeh covering their face and a top decorated with the Palestinian flag speaking in Arabic. English subtitles indicate the speaker is threatening "rivers of blood" over the presence of Israeli athletes at the 2024 Olympic Games and denouncing French support for the nation in its war against Hamas.

In the days before the July 26 opening ceremony, posts sharing different versions of the video spread across Instagram, X, Facebook and other websites with captions in multiple languages, including French, Portuguese and Spanish.

French security forces are on their highest alert to prevent terror attacks spoiling the start of the first Olympics in Paris in 100 years, and Israel has warned of potential threats from Iran-backed groups against Israeli athletes and tourists. But many were quick to question the authenticity of the video, pointing out Arabic mistakes and that accounts sharing it appear to be affiliated with pro-Russian networks instead of Hamas.

"The French secret services and their partners have not been able to authenticate the veracity of this video," French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said July 24.

Hamas has denied responsibility for the video, according to the jihadist threat analysis group SITE (archived here). The threat monitor quoted senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq, based in Qatar, as saying: "This fabricated video is part of Zionist propaganda to incite against the Palestinian resistance."

'False flag'

Darmanin said the bulk of those sharing the video "were either pro-Kremlin or pro-Russian accounts." However, he declined to attribute them to the Russian state itself, saying the posts could have come from a "sphere that might want to spread disinformation (against) our country."

Moscow has deniedbeing involved in this type of operation.

Foreign interference researcher David Colon said in a French post on X (archived here and here) that one of the most widely viewed posts sharing the video comes from the pro-Russian account @aussiecossack.